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Donna Leon in Spain in 2019
Photo: Javier Lizon/EPA-EFE/REX
Bestselling author Donna Leon sees a new era of censorship coming: "We now live in a world in which you are not allowed to write anything that offends, surprises, hurts, disturbs readers or touches sensitivities in any other way," said the 80-year-old of the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung". I don't like that at all. That's called censorship."
Leon compared the practice of cleansing classics such as Pippi Longstocking of racist terms with the historical distortion of communism. In her opinion, this would edit the past "in the name of values and morality." Just like the communists did in Russia," she told the newspaper. Anyone who marched on Victory Day was retouched from the photo the next year."
Leon argued for recognizing the language of the past as part of our history. She can understand why people want to revise books: "We would all like to forget the atrocities that have been said to us. But it just happened."
The writer said that there had never been a storm of protest against her own books – with one exception: after she had let a dog die in one of her crime novels, readers had written letters of protest: "I probably let around 50 people die in my crime novels. That doesn't bother anyone. But with a Golden Retriever, the fun stops."
kim/AFP