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9780199283347

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A groundbreaking account. Amit Chaudhuri, TLS One of the most compelling books about Africa. Amit Chaudhuri, The Guardian In this remarkable book... McDonald brings fresh perspectives to postcolonial literary scholarship which has generally been stronger on textual reading than material questions of literary sociology. The Literature Police provides a much-needed and empirically rich understanding of literary institutions and will surely prompt analyses of censorship systems in other parts of the postcolonial world. Isabel Hofmeyr, Interventions In his penetrating investigation as much into the history of censorship in practice as into its philosophical and ideological foundations, McDonald brilliantly and sometimes startlingly fills in [a] disturbing blank...in our country's recent intellectual history. Andre P. Brink, Die Burger McDonald's book may be the most comprehensive single history of writing and publishing in South Africa for the period from the 1950s to the 1980s...That McDonald's book allows us to scrutinize for the first time the activities not of the censor but of specific censors, who acted as they would, is its greatest achievement. More than that, through the archive it opens, it invites us to consider a more troubling suggestion: that literature is a catachresis for an object of rivalrous desire Mark Sanders, Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies Censorship crafted silences into South African cultural life: McDonald speaks, from this historical distance, into those silences...This is historical recovery at its best. Michael Titlestad, The Times of South Africa McDonald's book is a vigorous yet subtle and always compellingly readable contribution to the history of and debate about the borders of the literary and the place of words in the world. Shaun de Waal, Mail and Guardian (an) eye-opening book Boyd Tonkin, The Independent Indispensable reading if we wish to understand the forces forming and deforming literary production in South Africa during the apartheid years. JM Coetzee An amazing book - a gift actually. Antjie Krog The Truth and Reconciliation Commission laid greater emphasis on reconciliation than on truth. It has now become the function of scholarship to reveal the unvarnished truth about apartheid machinations. Most of us have always wondered why our literary works were banned - what convoluted logic informed censorship. Peter McDonald's book lifts the veil of secrecy under which state censors operated in South Africa. Mbulelo Mzamane The Literature Police is one of the most comprehensive, scholarly and human examinations of censorship ever compiled. The Project names, and shames, the censors and posts the blacklist of apartheid South Africas banned books. An inspiration to all of us... FACT - Freedom Against Censorship Thailand

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