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Booker winner slams censorship
11/03/2008 17:23 - (SA)
Hong Kong - Man Booker Prize
winner Anne Enright says censorship never works, while voicing
her conviction ahead of a first visit to China that words
ultimately prevail over powers seeking to curb the freedom of
expression.
Censorship in China has come under greater scrutiny ahead
of the Beijing Olympics in August, and some global artists have
clashed with the Chinese government over its bleak rights
record.
"Words are liquid, they get everywhere. Emily Dickinson has
a line that says you cannot fold a flood and put it in a
drawer," Enright told Reuters in Hong Kong, referring to the
reclusive 19th century American poet.
Enright, a Dubliner known for her works exploring the
darker elements of the human condition, won the prestigious
2007 Man Booker prize for her novel The Gathering.
She was in Hong Kong for the Man International Literary
Festival and plans to fly to Shanghai afterwards.
Curbs on freedom of expression
When asked to comment on China's curbs on the freedom of
expression, from banning books to jailing writers, Enright
spoke broadly of the prevailing power of literature in
overcoming the debilitating effects of censorship on society.
"There was no way that when I was growing up that the tide
of Irish writing was going to be stopped by something even as
powerful as the Catholic Church," she told Reuters, citing the
uncompromising writing of Edna O'Brien and John McGahern.
"By conviction I'm against censorship in general and also
in a pragmatic kind of way I think it doesn't work," she added.
Human rights groups have used the global spotlight on
China ahead of the Games to highlight a range of issues from
jailed dissidents, internet and media censorship and religious
controls to Beijing's policy on Tibet.
China announced last week it would tighten controls over
foreign singers and other performers after Icelandic singer
Bjork shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" during a recent Shanghai concert.
Director Steven Spielberg quit as an artistic advisor to the
Olympics due to Beijing's policy toward Sudan's Darfur.
Silenced without trial
Pen, the international writers' association, urged Beijing
to free nearly 40 jailed dissident writers before the Olympics,
some of whom had been silenced without trial for alleged
subversion.
While China invariably bars the publication of politically
sensitive books, Enright said she was pleased at the hunger of
Chinese publishers to translate and publish difficult literary
works such as her own.
Her novel The Gathering probes sexual
taboos and thwarted lust in a large Irish family.
"I'm fascinated by the idea that the Chinese publishing
houses bought all my backlist.
"I'm always interested in
questions of cultural interpretation, and how somebody in a
very different culture interprets my work is a really
intriguing question."
Enright, dressed in a black Jaeger dress with an Oriental
design touch, said the world was now afraid and curious about
China as its influence ripples across porous borders.
"My children at the ages of five and seven know the
difference between Cantonese and Mandarin. Ireland is not a
monolithic, Catholic society anymore."
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South Africa
