Censorship and Conscience
Foreign Authors and the Challenge of Chinese Censorship
PEN America Experts:
Director, Research
Many Western authors, agents, and publishers have not paid close attention to what happens to their books when published in China, to the point where many are not even aware that they have been censored, PEN American Center says today in a new report. Other authors have willingly or tacitly agreed to censorship, including cuts that satisfy Chinese censors’ aim of deflecting attention and awareness from historically significant events like China’s Great Famine during the Cultural Revolution.
Released just a week before BookExpo America (BEA)—the publishing industry’s largest U.S. trade show—opens at New York’s Javits Center on May 27 with a focus on China’s fast-growing book market, Censorship and Conscience: Foreign Authors and the Challenge of Chinese Censorship illustrates an under-explored dimension of China’s massive censorship machine: the censorship of some of the thousands of international titles published annually in China.
(also available in Chinese)