In the last two weeks we’ve been campaigning hard against right-wing officials trying to ban books and authors in Veneto (North-East Italy). Alongside many writers and readers, we’ve been helping to coordinate a rich, manifold counter-informative operation which has taught us (and is still teaching us) many lessons. We already scored some important goals, as we managed to stop some hateful initiatives dead in their tracks. Unfortunately, we’ve been so engulfed in the campaign that we haven’t had time to keep you anglophones reasonably up-to-date with what was going on. If you look at this post’s comment section, you’ll find some useful texts and pingbacks. We even held a public meeting and made a demonstration “in the belly of the Beast”, ie in Preganziol, province of Treviso, the den of the hideous Northern League. A brief, partial report on what happened can be found here.
Anyway, we can’t omit to post stuff specifically related to our work as writers.
Thus, here’s the first batch of news of 2011. (more…)

- Atualisaçoes nos comentarios -

[Pedimos aos leitores para reagirem. E eles já o fazem! Todas as sugestões que demos ao final deste artigo estão sendo postas em prática entusiasticamente, melhoradas e compartilhadas por uma multidão de pessoas que estão horrorizadas pelo que está acontecendo na região de Veneza. Editores estão produzindo declarações e lançando comunicados oficiais, a mídia nacional está começando a cobrir o assunto, a Associação Nacional de Bibliotecários (AIB) condenou enfaticamente a proposta e convidou os leitores a relatar qualquer tentativa de censurar e banir livros. Contudo, isso ainda não é suficiente. Precisamos que as pessoas de fora do país saibam o que está acontecendo, há o fedor da prática nazista de queima de livros na Itália, e o caso do fugitivo “ex-terrorista” Cesare Battisti (agora no Brasil) não é mais que uma desculpa para a repressão. O período de declínio de um regime pode ser muito longo, e é seu período mais perigoso, à medida que os lacaios ficam cada vez mais desesperados e recorrem a todos os tipos de atos absurdos de modo a manter suas garras sobre a sociedade.]
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As melhores palavras, dadas as circunstâncias, foram encontradas por nosso colega Serge Quadruppani. Aqui estão, traduzidas do francês: (more…)

[Traduit de l'italien par Gaia Manco. Mise à jour dans les comments]

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Serge Quadruppani a su trouver les mots les plus indiquées. Les voilà: (more…)

[Traducido desde el italiano por Nadie Enparticular. ACTUALIZACIONES EN EL COMENTARIO]
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Las palabras más adecuadas a las circunstancias las encontró Serge Quadruppani. Las traducimos del francés, son estas: (more…)

N.B. UPDATES BELOW, IN THE COMMENT SECTION

[English translation of the "call to arms" we issued yesterday. We asked readers to fight back, and fighting they are! All the suggestions we gave at the end of this article are being enthusiastically put into practice, improved and shared by multitudes of people who are horrified by what is taking place in the Venice area. Publishers are making statements and releasing communiqués, the national media are starting to cover the affair, the National Association of Librarians (AIB) has strongly condemned the proposal and invited readers to counter any attempt at censoring and banning books. However, this isn't enough yet. We need people abroad to be aware of what's going on, there's a stench of nazi book burnings in Italy, and the case of fugitive "ex-terrorist" Cesare Battisti (now in Brazil) is nothing more than an excuse for repression. The period of a regime's decline may be very long, and it's the most dangerous period, as the lackeys get more and more desperate and resort to all kinds of senseless acts in order to keep their  grip on society. Thanks to Gregorio Magini of Scrittura Industriale Collettiva for translating our piece, we really wouldn't have had time to do it! In the next few hours we'll provide translations in French, Spanish and Catalan. We badly need a Portuguese version. French-speaking readers can already read Serge Quadruppani's article on Rue 89.]
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The best words, given the circumstances, were found by our colleague Serge Quadruppani. Here they are, translated from French: (more…)

Colonel Qaddafi arrived with a provocation pinned to one lapel of his baggy military uniform: a black-and-white photograph of a Libyan resistance leader, Omar al-Mukhtar, who was hanged by the Italians in 1931.
“This hanging is like the crucifixion of Christ for Christians,” Colonel Qaddafi said at the news conference. “For us, this image is a bit like the cross that some of you wear.”
- NYT, June 10, 2009

[WM1:] Yesterday I was reading accounts of Qaddafi‘s official visit to Rome, a gaudy event if there ever was one, and I thought: “This is one of our short-stories come true! Such a post-colonial freak-show looks like coming straight out of Wumingland.”
Turns out I wasn’t the only one to have that feeling. A guy we know named Alessandro Vicenzi posted the picture above on his Tumblr and added a caption: “Qaddafi brings the New Italian Epic into the heart of the State“.
For those of you not in the know, “New Italian Epic” is (more…)