The Bookseller.com

20th November 2008

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Censorship threat to China's writers

18.01.08

The struggle for readers and the demands of the market are not the only difficulties faced by Chinese writers, reports the Guardian. There is also, according to the London-based Chinese poet Yang Lian, the continued pressure of government censorship, which is "even stricter than before".

The explosive growth of the Chinese publishing industry has combined with more tolerant attitudes to sexual material to make it possible to publish books that might have been banned in the past - but the dangers are still there.

"Censorship's not quite the blunt instrument it used to be," says the Beijing-based journalist and translator Eric Abrahamsen. "Writers can publish books, but then there's pressure exerted on publishers not to reprint them, or media organisations not to cover them." These economic threats create a climate of fear where writers are afraid to write, he adds. "Self-censorship is a far bigger problem than government censorship."

Guardian

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