Description
By (author) Al-Essa Bothayna; Translated by Abdelrahman, Ranya; Translated by Hussain, Sawad
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FINALIST, National Book Award for Translated Literature, 2024
A perilous and fantastical satire of banned books, secret archives, and the looming eye of an all-powerful government.
The new book censor hasn’t slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish—allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.
Reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees, Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The Book Censor’s Library is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
Review quote:
“The Book Censor’s Library is a rallying cry for bibliophiles everywhere.” —Time Magazine, the 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
“Bothayna Al-Essa”s The Book Censor”s Library is a necessary masterpiece, proving that true fiction is not an escape into a dreamlike Wonderland but a cautionary excursion into the depths of the human condition. More than ever, we need Bothayna Al-Essa”s rallying cry against censorship, be it political, religious or academic, because, as her novel so brilliantly illustrates, censorship is always an admission of intellectual cowardice.” —Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading
“An urgent, sweeping call to arms for the protection of books and book lovers everywhere.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Al-Essa (Lost in Mecca) riffs on Kafka with this canny story of a book censor who transforms into a reader. Throughout, Al-Essa lays out the supposed dangers of reading in coolly ironic terms. . . This allegory brims with intelligence.” —Publishers Weekly
“Meaning, metaphor, and the material are all at stake in this sly fable of a near-future won by censors who ban not just books but imagination, dreams, and desire. Like the fluffy white creatures munching cabbage across these pages, I fell right down Al-Essa”s rabbit hole–I”d follow these characters anywhere.” —Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association
“Expertly infusing both comedic heart and dystopian warning, Bothayna Al-Essa reminds us how lucky we are to embody the stories we love.” —Jade Song, author of Chlorine
“The Book Censor”s Library was a riveting tale that was part homage to books and reading and part social commentary of the horrors of authoritarianism. Full of literary references, it”s a treasure trove of Easter eggs for those keen to spot every mention and every metaphor. But it was also a captivating story as we follow the book censor through his journey uncovering the delights and dangers (at least in his world) of literature.” —Nicki J. Markus, author of Time Keepers
“Bothayna Al-Essa”s claustrophobic satire summons the spirits of Orwell, Carroll, and Kafka, serving as a sharp reminder to cherish free speech. . . . a fast-paced meditation on the power of language to stir us out of numbness.” —Farah Abdessamad, The New Arab
“Time will tell whether The Book Censor’s Library possesses the same kind of
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