NZ bans award-winning YA novel after complaints from conservative Christian group

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GDIAF, fucking wowsers. I hope there’s a digital version of this already…

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The ban is an interim measure until a more permanent decision is made, at which point I expect the ban will be lifted and the Streisand effect will kick in.

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The history of the classification ( and reclassification (and re-re-classification)) of this book is way more complicated and storied than the Guardian article makes out. There is quite a good summary of events on the Classification Office’s own website: http://www.censor.org.nz/resources/case-studies/into-river.html

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No self-respecting liberal democracy needs a “Film and Literature Board of Review”, a “Classification Office”, or a “Chief Censor”.

My favorite right-wing goon had a pretty amusing response:

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Interim measure shouldn’t be banning. The default should be “hands off”. Otherwise all books could be banned until they can be investigated and found acceptable to the saps that banned them in the first place

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I just spent an unseemly long time unsuccessfully looking up New Zealand slang terms for genitalia.

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Awesome. I wonder if people who like to ban books are also aware of this thing called “The Internet”?

And cognitive dissonance being what it is, any chance Huckabee and Cruz are going to hold a rally in defense of the ban?

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My friendly local bookstore is apparently getting a lot of enquiries from people wanting to buy. They have stock, but are making a big deal of not being allowed to sell. I suspect they’ll make a small killing when the ban is inevitably reversed and ‘Into the River’ races to become a bestseller. In the meantime the foot traffic can’t be harming sales … :smile:

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“cunt” … they just mean “cunt”

That quote made me instantly love the author when I first read it.

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I just bought the ebook.

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The wannabe guardians of unsoiled culture must be throwing a fit due to their subjects’ ability to buy/download things from all the world, from the areas outside of their petty desires.

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