The Book Censor's Library
本を禁じる側と読む側のあいだで揺れる、検閲と知の物語。図書館をめぐる寓話的な設定のなかに、権力と読書への欲望が鋭く浮かぶ。
作品情報
禁じられた本が並ぶ場所では、読むことそのものが抵抗になる。
検閲と図書館をめぐる寓話的な設定のなかで、本を読むことの意味を問い直す。権力と知への欲望がせめぎ合う空間が、現代的な緊張感を生む。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Restless Books
- 発売日
- 2024-04-30
- ページ数
- 272ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 12.45 x 2.54 x 18.03 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781632063342
- ISBN-10
- 1632063344
- 価格
- 3580 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 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.
レビュー
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Interesting premises. Hated the ending. I think other books do dystopia better.
-
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.
関連する文学賞
- ナショナル・ブック賞（翻訳文学） 第7回（2024年） ・Nominee