J. M. Coetzee: Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship

Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship



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Author: J. M. Coetzee
Number of Pages: 300 pages
Published Date: 04 Dec 1997
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Publication Country: Chicago, IL, United States
Language: English
ISBN: 9780226111766
Download Link: Click Here
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This is an analysis of censorship from the perspective of one who has lived and worked under its shadow. The essays collected here attempt to understand the passion that plays itself out in acts of silencing and censoring. Coetzee argues that a destructive dynamic of belligerence and escalation tends to overtake the rivals in any field ruled by censorship. From Osip Mandelstam commanded to compose an ode in praise of Stalin, to Breyten Breytenbach writing poems under and for the eyes of his prison guards, to Aleksander Solzhenitsyn engaging in a trial of wits with the organs of the Soviet state, the book focuses on the ways authors have historically responded to censorship. It also analyzes the arguments of Catharine MacKinnon for the suppression of pornography and traces the operations of the old South African censorship system.