National Book Award for Translated Literature
The Book Censor's Library
A novel about censorship, forbidden books, and the desire to read, set in a library where power and curiosity are in constant tension.
Work Information
In a library of banned books, reading itself becomes resistance.
Within an allegorical setting centered on censorship and a library, the novel asks what it means to read. The struggle between power and the desire for knowledge gives the book its contemporary tension.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Restless Books
- Published
- 2024-04-30
- Pages
- 272 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.45 x 2.54 x 18.03 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781632063342
- ISBN-10
- 1632063344
- Price
- 3580 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Politics & Government/Specific Topics/Censorship
FINALIST, National Book Award for Translated Literature, 2024 A perilous and fantastical satire of banned books, secret archives, and the looming eye of an all-powerful government. The new book censor hasn’t slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish―allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture. Reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees, Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland . The Book Censor’s Library is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
Bothayna Al-Essa is the bestselling Kuwaiti author of nearly a dozen novels and additional children’s books. She is also the founder of Takween, a bookshop and publisher of critically acclaimed works. Her most recent book, The Book Censor's Library , won the Sharjah Award for Creativity in the novel category in 2021 and is her third novel to appear in English, after Lost in Mecca and All That I Want to Forget . Al-Essa was author-in-residence at the British Centre for Literary Translation for the summer of 2023, and the recipient of Kuwait’s Nation Encouragement Award for her fiction in 2003 and 2012. She has written books on writing and led writing workshops throughout the Arab world. Ranya Abdelrahman is a translator of Arabic literature into English. After working for more than sixteen years in the information technology industry, she changed careers and joined the Emirates Literature Foundation to pursue her interest in books and promoting reading. She discovered her passion for translation during her time at the Foundation, where she worked as Programme Manager, and later Head of Education and Publishing. Abdelrahman has published translations in ArabLit Quarterly and The Common , and is the translator of Out of Time , a short story collection by iconic Palestinian author Samira Azzam. She is based in Dubai in the U.A.E. Sawad Hussain is a translator from Arabic whose work has been recognised by English PEN, the Anglo-Omani Society and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, among others. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the 2023 National Translation Award. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library, and the National Centre for Writing. Her most recent translations include Black Foam by Haji Jaber (AmazonCrossing) and What Have You Left Behind by Bushra al-Maqtari (Fitzcarraldo Editions). She was selected to be the Princeton Translator in Residence in 2025. She is based in Cambridge, U.K. and her website is sawadhussain.com.
Reviews
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The dystopian world of all books, wrapped up into one imagination. So many genres, so many thoughts, so many controlling ideas . So so scary. A true account of politics today.
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When a book censor's life is turned upside down, he must decide whether to do what is right or what he has been told to do. A humorous, yet, all too close to home story that tells of a future where books and imagination are banned. This story was so interesting. I've always hated the thought of banned books or anyone in general telling you what you can and cannot read. This story hits the mark on that yet hold humor and a dream-like quality to it. The only reason for a star missing was because I didn't really care for how it ended.
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Profound, tragic, and yet playful, with a wonderful plot that can’t be hinted at without serving up spoilers. It’s a great book. Read it. There are many literary allusions that are on the money. One he left out was Zafon, Shadow of the wind. See if you agree.
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Interesting premises. Hated the ending. I think other books do dystopia better.
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Read it in one sitting, my mind is blown.Definitely a book I want to read again. It was very captivating , and easy to read.