25 - 31 January 2001
Issue No.518
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 25 - 31 January 2001 Issue No.518 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Censorship on parole
First of all, we have to remember that the state's printing presses are not the only ones available. Once these are excluded, there is complete freedom for any writer or publisher to present any book on the markets without the need for approval by any censor's office. And in this, we are among a very small group of Third World countries that exercise no censorship over books.
So however many crises confront writers on their journeys, they should know that the road before them remains wide open, even though one must avoid the occasional pitfall.
As for the state's own policy on publishing, I feel that the government, and in fact the establishment in general, is not (and indeed cannot be expected to be) a suitable publisher for experimental and avant-garde works that could contain material potentially disturbing to the general public. Whoever writes such works, therefore, should take them to private-sector publishers or rely on his own efforts or those of a small artistic group in order to publish what he has written. We have often heard about progressive writers in other countries who had to depend on their own private endeavours after being rejected by major publishing houses. The new and the experimental is the responsibility of the literary milieu itself, not of the state. And that is something we must remember.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
