As Agatha Christie becomes the latest in a line of authors whose works are being rewritten, censorship (even well-intentioned censorship) sees no sign of dissipating. I believe that rewriting classics not only unintentionally implies that we cannot cope with books of their time, but also produces airbrushed versions of texts that entirely miss the point […]
If you ever want to feel good about the world, go to The Guardian and search for their cartoons section. From Edith Pritchett’s Venn diagrams to some quite hilarious political drawings, it is a good time. My favourite cartoonist is Tom Gauld. He created one that now sits on my computer’s home screen. It features […]
We live in an era of literary rewriting. Following the news that Roald Dahl’s works are being rewritten to remove offensive language (which we covered in The Student), James Bond is the next target. Major news outlets have revealed that Ian Fleming’s novels are to be reissued with many potentially offensive lines removed. Once again, […]
Censorship abounds as a theme in literature. George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale are classic examples. In a now chilling turn of reality, Putin has banned what the Russian government deems “LGBT Propaganda”. Towards the end of 2022, the Russian government passed a law criminalising the creation, production, distribution, and consumption of […]
Puffin, the renowned publishing house, has announced that the works of Roald Dahl are being rewritten to remove offensive language for future generations. This project is in partnership with Inclusive Minds, “a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature.” Examples of the changes include the alteration of Augustus Gloop’s […]
In November 2022, beloved Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a BBC Reith Lecture on “Freedom of Speech”. As an Edinburgh English Lit student, I found it a refreshing, enlightening, and inspiring speech that can have value for usall. Adichie’s premise is that public discourse is currently suffering from “social censure”. In her words, “we […]
On August 12, the acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times at a literary event in Chautauqua, New York by 24-year-old Hadi Matar. The attack appears to have been in connection to the fatwa issued against Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses, which has been embroiled in controversy for more than thirty […]
CW: Sexual Content A student at the ECA has been the latest victim in a long history of artistic censorship: that is one way of looking at the controversy that has recently arisen at the Edinburgh College of Art. An alternative narrative could see the dispute between Maciek Kosc (he/him) and the school as a […]