An Embarrassment of Tyrannies: Twenty-Five Years of - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807614416 ISBN 13: 9780807614419

Publisher: George Braziller Inc., 1998

Synopsis

Collected here are sixty-two powerful and often terrifying pieces selected from Index on Censorship's twenty-five years' worth of issues documenting and condemning tyranny.

The writings, many by such renowned authors as Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, and Julio Cortazar, cover the issues with careful even-handedness. Ariel Dorfman writes from the experience of the Chilean dictatorship and imagines a training course for salesmen of torture equipment; Alexander Solzhenitsyn has a fragment of poetry recalling his own period in a labor camp in Kazakhstan; Wale Soginka writes powerfully in defense of Salman Rushie―a truly disturbing piece.

A great tribute to Index's achievements, this collection celebrates without being self-congratulatory. Its contributors provide elegant testimony to the human spirit's capacity for survival and its continuing struggle for freedom.

About this title

About the Authors

W. L. Webb is a journalist and political commentator, associated with Index on Censorship from its founding. He was formerly literary editor of the Guardian.

Rose Bell has been with Index on Censorship since 1991 and is currently its Production Editor.

Reviews

A powerfully hard-hitting collection of short essays. Contributor and longtime associate Webb and current production editor Bell offer an edited volume culled from the pages of the British periodical Index on Censorship. Founded to challenge political censorship, the original goal of Index was to provide ``the noise of publicity outside every detention centre and concentration camp.'' Strangling words by denying them an audience effectively kills an author, and Index is a writer's response to political tyranny, an effort to keep authors from disappearing ``into total obscurity and loneliness'' so that they ``and the names of their works, would remain among the names of the living.'' Twenty-five years ago the repressive regimes of the Soviets and their allies were the obvious targets, but throughout its tenure Index has resisted identification with a particular ideology. Equal opportunity gadflies, its contributors have exposed a wide range of threats to freedom throughout the world and have criticized censorship whether a function of political, religious, or social concerns. Familiar names include Solzhenitsyn, Havel, and Rushdie, but the most powerful efforts are not necessarily from the most famous writers: consider the letter from George Mangakis in his Greek prison cell, Ivan Krauss satire addressed to Ceausescu, the response of Nigerian Wole Soyinka to Khomeini's indictment of Rushdie, or Dror Green's story from inside the Israeli-occupied territories. Essays by Arthur Miller, Judy Blume, and Noam Chomsky cast spotlights on American forms of censorship, and even England is held up for scrutiny by Michael Tippett, John Mortimer, and others. Throughout this volume a unique characteristic of the best political writing is on display: the message is disturbing but simultaneously uplifting, for the simple fact that someone could write about these experiences, however horrible, or make these arguments, however appallingly necessary, indicates there is hope for the achievement of human freedom and dignity in the world. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A powerful, often inspirational, testament to freedom of expression against all forms of tyranny, this collection of essays, poems, interviews and letters is culled from the 25-year history of the British journal Index on Censorship. The goal of the magazine, as Webb, former literary editor of the Guardian, explains in his opening essay, was to include writings (many of which have been banned in the authors' respective countries) that document instances of repression within the Soviet Union, Bosnia, China, Argentina, Greece and other authoritarian regimes, and to be a watchdog against any form of censorship that interferes with the unfettered exchange of information. Webb and Bell, an editor at Index, have brought together gripping writing from some of the world's most outspoken writers: in "A Writer's Freedom" Nadine Gordimer defines freedom as the "right to maintain and publish to the world a deep, intense, private view of the situation in which he finds his society." In "Urbicides, Massacres, Common Graves," Spanish-Catalan novelist Juan Goytisolo describes the devastation of war while walking through Chechnya in 1996. Writers of the other 63 entries include Italian Nobel laureate Dario Fo (who discusses the U.S. forbidding him to enter the country as late as 1983), Stephen Spender (Index's founder), Vaclav Havel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Salman Rushdie. While celebrating stories of human courage over the most savage forms of persecution, this volume serves as a grim reminder that governmental injustice remains widespread.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This anthology of 65 essays, interviews, poems, stories, and letters was selected from a quarter-century of published materials in the British periodical Index on Censorship. The publications deal with a variety of censorship issues and cases throughout the world and the experiences of the authors, artists, and political leaders who have been most affected by attempts to silence them. Loosely organized, the collection includes poems by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Cuban poet Heberto Padilla; articles by Nigerian novelist and playwright Wole Soyinka; Arthur Miller on McCarthyism and the "sin of power"; and gay writer Alberto Manguel on state-sponsored homophobia. Although a couple of the essays appear motivated more by political ideology than by aversion to state censorship (e.g., Noam Chomsky's broadside against U.S. government policy), this selection offers a representative survey (with an emphasis on Soviet examples) of some of the most egregious censorship campaigns conducted during the past 25 years. It updates Jonathan Green's The Encyclopedia of Censorship (LJ 12/89). Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.?Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Punning on an embarrassment of wealth to show the glut of tyrants and censorship, this collection of essays from Britain's journal Index on Censorship also shows what an embarrassment free speech is to such tyrants. The concerns reflected range from the dangers of subconscious self-censorship to politically motivated silencing of inspiring voices. Some of the people provoking censure are predictable, for example, Noam Chomsky, Wole Soyinka, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nadine Gordimer, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Salman Rushdie; others are not, for example, young-adult author Judy Blume, filmmaker Ken Loach, and violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Topics such as gender, poverty, media access, and even Muzak are addressed. The overriding tone is strident, which is appropriate for outrages that censor anyone offering a different world vision from those in power. However, the message bears repeating, and the focused writing rarely bogs down. Occasional moments of humor and clever perspectives also save the reader from complete despair and horror. With today's burgeoning media and attendant battle for control, this book should find good use in the library. Kevin Grandfield

Edition details

• Publisher: George Braziller Inc.
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807614416
• ISBN 13: 9780807614419
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 346
• Editor: Webb W. L., Bell Rose