Arguments and counter-arguments have been ongoing in Kuwait since the country’s Information Ministry banned “25” (or 35? or at least 100? more than 200?) titles from this year’s book fair, which started this past Wednesday.
Last night, a regular, (cherished, actually) reader emailed me something like the question above. In fact, the reader asked:
“…in the grand scheme of the literary festival kingdom, who is Kuwait? Do they even have any credibility as a festival anyway?”
Perhaps 25—or 35—books were newly censored from this year’s Kuwait Book Fair. (Twenty-five is the somewhat dubious number given out by Kuwait’s Ministry of Information. ANHRI said 35.) No, neither may seem like a lot. But somehow, these 25/35 books seem to have raised more eyebrows than the 230 titles banned in 2007, most of which I assume are still forbidden.
According to the AFP, Kuwait’s information ministry said in a statement Tuesday that its censorship committee has “banned only 25 titles out of 24,000 books for abusing God, prophets and other religious figures, books on pornography and others undermining Kuwait.”
