The Book Censor's Library

The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Sometime in the future…

When the book censors have won the war against books and free thought…

And imagination is a crime…

As is any mention of the world BEFORE the revolution.

There is a new book censor, and unnamed man. Who does his job, reading from a list of books that he must determine if they are a go or no go…

“All language is smooth. There are no ripples. Stay on the surface, and you’ll always be the best censor.”

In other words, live in the superficialities. We are not interested in the deeper meaning…we are not concerned with context.

There are rabbits in the building…

Like in Alice in Wonderland…

And then one day he reads a book that he doesn’t want to ban…

“As the book censor awoke one morning, filled with others’ words, he found himself transitioned into a reader…”

The book is Zorba the Greek.

He becomes the most wretched of things in a society that values order and discipline and obedience…

He becomes a book lover.

And soon he joins the underground, fighting back against a society that lost its way a long time ago.

Wow.
This one…

As a great man once said: “Goose stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.”

It doesn’t matter what a book is about. It is not up to the State to determine whether a book has merit or not. Stamping out books is stamping out humanity.

The Book Censor’s Library is as delightful and heartwarming as it is terrifyingly possible.
And it might one day be mentioned in the same breath as Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, before it gets banned.





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