Somebody told me today that when you enter Cuba customs officials take a hard look at the books you plan to read on the beach. If they don’t like your reading choices, they confiscate.
Anything that could be construed as promoting utopian themes, dystopian themes or revolution is taken from you. They’re really serious about wanting the last revolution they had to really be the last revolution they ever have. 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 are on the list among many many others. I wonder if Catcher in the Rye is on the list? That’s teenage rebellion, but still. Rebel without a Cause, The Princess Bride, a whole whack of Shakespeare–the mind boggles. Where would it stop? Maybe Dickens is okay, and Crime and Punishment since that arose from another communist regime. I’m guessing Harlequin romances are huge there, and generally left behind by tourists sick of their beach reading.*
On the one hand, I’m appalled at any form of censorship of free speech. On the other hand, I have to give Castro a bit of quirky respect since he obviously thinks books are important, and ideas expressed in fiction can be dangerous. In the West, where in many ways the written word seems to matter much less, it’s actually refreshing to see somebody get excited about what’s in a book.
Cuba’s government must be awfully fragile to be so queasy.
*Harlequin bad for you. Rot brain. Me know. Me work there one and half years…chicks hot though. Me digress.
BONUS: Funny post about Sarah Palin and Going Rogue here.
Filed under: banning books, publishing, banned books, censorship in Cuba
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