LONDON - The majority of living Nobel prize for literature laureates have called on world leaders attending the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt this week to help free thousands of political prisoners in the country, including the writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah who is six months into a hunger strike and “at risk of death”.

The letter, organised by Abd El-Fattah’s UK publishers Fitzcarraldo Editions and Seven Stories Press, has been signed by 13 Nobel prize for literature winners: Svetlana Alexievich, JM Coetzee, Annie Ernaux, Louise Glück, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elfriede Jelinek, Mario Vargas Llosa, Patrick Modiano, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka and Olga Tokarczuk, writes the Guardian.

It was also signed by scientist and Nobel prize in chemistry recipient George P Smith, and mathematician and Nobel prize in physics winner Roger Penrose.

The 15 laureates called on the world leaders to “speak the names of the imprisoned, to call for their freedom, and to invite Egypt to turn a page and become a true partner in a different future: a future that respects human life and dignity.”

They cited the case of Abd El-Fattah, who has been imprisoned for most of the last decade and is one of Egypt’s most high-profile political prisoners. The British-Egyptian writer has been on hunger strike since April and has said he will stop drinking water on 6 November, the first day of Cop27.