【单选题】

Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, and Lord Smith, the former culture secretary, have launched a campaign to stem the flow of famous writers’ archives being sold to universities inAmeric

A、They are leading a 15-strong group of eminent literary figures demanding tax breaks, government funding and lottery cash to helpBritish institutions match the bids of their richAmerican rivals. The campaign comes amid fears that the papers of Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of theDay, may go abroaD、All three are understood to have been approached recently by agents acting for institutions inAmeric
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In recent yearsBritish authors whose papers have been sold abroad include the novelists PeterAckroyd, JulianBarnes and MalcolmBradbury and the playwrightsDavid Hare and Tom StoddarD、The works of JMBarrie, the writer of Peter Pan, Graham Greene,DH Lawrence andEvelyn Waugh are already held abroaD、In 1997, a year before his death, Ted Hughes, the late poet laureate, sold his archive for about ￡500,000 toEmory University inAtlant
A、While taxpayers may be happy to fund purchases of famous paintings so that they remain in the country and be put on show, it is less clear what the immediate benefit would be in paying for authors’ archives to be kept here.
Adrian Sanders, a LiberalDemocrat member of theCommons culture select committee, said public money should be spent on "more pressing" projects. "The fact that archives such as this go abroad is, I’m afraid, the reality of the world," he saiD、"We have many artifacts in the UK that belong to other cultures. " The campaign argues, however, that valuable research sources are being lost. Foreign institutions sometimes charge for access to the material and, as the authors retain copyright, the papers cannot be made available on the internet.
"This is about our cultural heritage as well as the obvious research opportunities," said Motion, whose campaign group includes Michael Holroyd, the biographer and former president of the Royal Society of Literature, and Richard Ovenden, keeper of special collections at Oxford University. They are calling for the culture secretary to be given the authority to delay the export of items considered a significant part of the national heritage to enableBritish institutions to put together bids. The campaigners want an increase in direct grants and the removal of Vat from unbound papers, which increases the cost of purchases in this country.
Smith, who was culture secretary from 1997-2001, said: "It won’t cost the Treasury an arm and a leg—we’re talking pennies, really." The campaigners sayAmerican universities are targeting youngBritish writers and offering between ￡50,000 and ￡300,000 for their notebooks, manuscripts and letters. Joan Winterkorn, a broker who negotiated the sale of the papers of Laurence Olivier and the writers Kenneth Tynan and Peter Nichols to theBritish Library, said the cream ofBritish archive material will continue to be "up for grabs" unless the tax laws are changeD、"American universities are increasingly creating a working relationship with younger and younger writers, so this is not something that is going to go away," she saiD、
It is understood that an academic from oneAmerican institution was flown to London this month with a specific brief to "nobble" Ishiguro at theBooker prize dinner in London. Ishiguro, 50, who was nominated for his novel Never Let Me Go and who won theBooker in 1989 for The Remains of theDay, has not yet made a decision, according to his spokeswoman. She said he had been approached by a number of US universities.Arnold Wesker, best known for his plays Roots andChips withEverything, sold three tons of letters, manuscripts and papers to anAmerican university in 2000. "I was offered a derisory ￡60,000 from theBritish Library and ￡100,000 from the University of Texas atAustin—there was no contest," said Wesker, 73. "I wou