Barbarians Ban Books

This is a view inside the magnificent Real Gabinete Português de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro, a library that could well have been the inspiration for Borges’ infinite library of Babel. Like other libraries from this epoch, it is both a celebration of knowledge and a mausoleum. I have been writing a story about the last librarian on earth. He inhabits a place like this, one of a handful of libraries that has survived the barbarian assault on the printed word. He is haunted by libricide and wonders what it would be like to die inside a library that slowly heats up until it reaches 451deg  Fahrenheit, the moment when paper spontaneously combusts. The Ray Bradbury story has deep roots in human culture. The torching of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The destruction of the Islamic libraries of conquistador Spain. And then there is that harrowing photograph of a group of laughing Nazis dressed in casual slacks and jackets who are tossing literary masterpieces onto a giant bonfire. It is with well-founded fear and anger then that I greeted the news this week that authorities in three different Brasilian states have removed a book from school libraries. It comes as no surprise to discover that the three states in question, Mato Grosso, Paraná, and Rio Grande de Sul, are electoral strongholds of the extreme right that in the most twisted of ironies screams for liberty of expression in the same breath that they seek to prevent it. The novel in question is Jefferson Tenorio’s O Avesso de Pele, the winner of the Jabuti prize, the equivalent of the UK’s Booker. The central character is Pedro, an aspiring  black architecture student.  Mirroring events in the United States, there were two reasons given for banning the book. First, that it contains sexual content deemed inappropriate for adolescents between the age of fourteen and eighteen. Second, that the novel sets out to indoctrinate students about racism. Both accusations are manifestly absurd. The real reason is that the novel deals in a non-sensational manner with the everyday racist underbelly of Brasilian society. Petty discrimination, ignorant preconceptions, stereotypes about black sexuality, and violent police racism, themes considered far too disturbing for the young mind.