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Fw: The board of Gallimard,
which published Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in France ...
which published Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in France ...
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----- Original Message -----
From: Sandy P. Klein
To: Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 8:13 AM
Subject: The board of Gallimard, which published Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in France ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F09%2F03%2Fwbook03.xml
French publisher pulls paedophilia novel after outcry
By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris
(Filed: 03/09/2002)
A novel about paedophilia has been pulled out of French bookshops after complaints from child protection groups that its slip cover, which read Underage Love, was unduly offensive.
The decision has upset many of the country's intellectuals, who feel that taboos such as discussing paedophilia are there to be broken.
The book, Rose Bonbon (Pink Sweetie) by Nicolas Jones-Gorlin, is about a paedophile and murderer, who speaks in the first person about fondling children and killing them. It went on sale last week, but has now been withdrawn from bookshops all over France after its publisher was accused of breaking the law on the distribution of child pornography.
The board of Gallimard, which published Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in France, was split on whether to print the book in the first place. Several members felt that it was not a good enough novel to justify its controversial content. But publication went ahead and now Gallimard is back-pedalling. Its editorial director, Teresa Cremisi, told Le Monde newspaper that the book would be pulled temporarily and repackaged.
"We are suspending supplying it to bookshops to calm the situation down and because we don't want sales to benefit from scandal for bad reasons," she said.
Yves Crespin, a lawyer for L'Enfant Bleu, one of the groups which has criticised the book, said it contained passages "involving very young children in a pornographic context. If a film were made of the book, it would be unacceptable".
M Jones-Gorlin, the author, said his novel "demonstrates the complacency which surrounds paedophilia" and calls it a "critique of society".
France's League for the Rights of Man has written to Gallimard denouncing its decision to pull the book, saying: "Denying to writers the right to tackle the realities of society, like paedophilia, through a work of fiction is a serious assault on the freedom of creativity and expression."
Jerome Garcin, books editor at Nouvel Observateur magazine, said the problem with Rose Bonbon was that it was a bad book. "If a new Nabokov emerged with a new Lolita, they wouldn't hesitate to publish," he said, adding that French writers seemed to be competing to shock audiences with sex and violence - rendering much of their work banal.
Between Lolita and Rose Bonbon, the most controversial French case involving art and paedophilia occurred in 1984 when the singer Serge Gainsbourg recorded a duet with his 13-year-old daughter, Charlotte, called Lemon Incest.
More recently, many in France have been questioning standards in their literary and cinematic culture. Recent films, including Baise Moi and Irreversible have included scenes of graphic sex and violence and have divided critics over whether they belonged in ordinary cinemas or those reserved for pornographic films.
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