We’re not big on censorship here at For Reading Addicts so we’re sad to hear that Ireland’s Censorship of Publications Board has banned its first book in 18 years.
The board stated that Jean Martin’s novel The Raped Little Runaway is ‘indecent’ and ‘obscene’ for its numerous and explicit accounts of the rape of a minor. The book was published in New York.
Now I have to say, I’m not sure I would ever want to read this novel, based on the description above but we still stand on the side of anti-censorship. It’s well documented that readers go out of their way to read banned publications and you can guarantee every banned book fan in Ireland will be trying to get hold of a copy.
Board chairman said that the decision by the board had been unanimous with all five members voting to ban the book. Ireland’s Censorship of Publications Board is an independent body that oversees all books and periodicals on sale in Ireland. Over the years we’ve seen books such as Donleavy’s Ginger Man banned, but bans are applied often. The last book to be banned in Ireland was The Base Guide to London back in 1998. That book explored the seedier side of the English capital and was banned because it advertised the locations of ‘places of ill-repute’.
Whatever you feel about the subject matter of this book, literature covers all genres and all aspects of human life. I can think of many, many memoirs (and many out of Ireland) where child rape is portrayed as a memory and I’m not sure where the distinction is between the two. That said, I haven’t read the book, I only hope the censors did before making such a decision. Interestingly the book isn’t readily available on Amazon either, make of that what you will.
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You said, “I can think of many, many memoirs (and many out of Ireland) where child rape is portrayed as a memory and I’m not sure where the distinction is between the two.”
I hear what you’re saying. Perhaps the distinction is that in a memoir, a person is telling their story, bloody scars and all.
Barbara Kingsolver compared writing a memoir and writing a fiction work to gardening in a verdant climate and gardening in a desert climate. The first, one must decide what to leave in and the second, one must decide what to put in.
A memoir of a person’s own story is a person’s own story. A work of fiction can be anything that someone wants it to be and someone writing this kind of fiction makes me very uncomfortable indeed….