the literature police
March 23, 2009 2 Comments
A new book, The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and Its Cultural Consequences, by South African Peter D McDonald (he teaches English at Oxford University) presents the first full record of censorship of South African literature.
The book is accompanied by a website with pages that include: the names and biographies of the 40 “notable censors,” (these include some well-known Afrikaner writers and academics), a searchable database of 450 censorship decisions that represent “the most complete record to date” of decisions by the South African censors, another set of censor reports on books (including J M Coetzee’s “The Life and Times of Michael K” and “Waiting for the Barbarians”), a chronology of South African political and cultural history between 1910 (the establishment of the white Union of South Africa) and 1996 (the adoption of the new Constitution when the censorshop system was finally abolished), and finally a bibliography.
Here‘s also link to a story in a South African newspaper about the book and the website by Michael Titlestad, whose dad (?) served on the board.
UPDATE: Michael Titlestad commented below pointing out the Titlestad who served on the censorship board was not his dad, but a distant relative.
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Just a clarification: Peter Titlestad, who served on the censorship board, was not my father, but is a distant relation (not distant enough, as it turned out.
All the best
Michael