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FLASHBACK REVIEW
Back in 2009, I received a book to review from the HarperStudo imprint of HarperCollins, titled BURN THIS BOOK, edited by Toni Morrison and including such writers as John Updike, David Grossman, Francine Prose, Paul Auster, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, and Nadine Gordimer. The book, which was published in conjunction with PEN American Center, is a collection inspired by a speech given by Morrison at the PEN International Festival dinner in 2008, in which she discussed the idea of censorship of writers and the price paid in certain part of the world when their voices are silenced. Every writer within the pages of BURN THIS BOOK has been subjected to censorship in one form or another, and each has had to bear the consequences — whether personal, professional, or in terms of being stymied from expressions that should always have been a natural right.
In going through my notes and the pages I had underlined, one sentence in Toni Morrison’s introduction struck hard, and again, because of the knowledge of past events, resurrected by Banned Books Week, that are deeply relevant:
… the historical suppression of writers is the earliest harbinger of the steady peeling away of additional rights and liberties that will follow
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Coming Soon
- Re-Reading: On Lying and Politics by Hannah Arendt
- Excerpt from The Modern Meaning of Heart of Darkness
- "The Sacred and the Profane: How the United States Lost its love of The Enlightenment"
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Philosophorum publishes, in multiple media, articles, editorials, interviews, and reviews in addition to other original content.
If you are an SME in your field (international relations, history, philosophy, science, literature, psychology, and/or technology), and you are interested in submitting to Philosophorum, please contact me at kjw@philosophorum.media.
We will also be offering subscriptions for exclusive content, as well as a means to donate to the cause. Each contributor will also have the capacity to offer an exclusive link to their own contribution page.
If you would like to sponsor content, please contact us.
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