No banners or described signs, but books were raised on Saturday afternoon by the hundreds of participants in the readers’ march in the center of Utrecht. Which books? Many dystopias, such as Margaret Atwoods The Handmaid’s Taleand the new novel by Nelleke Noordervliet. Also much present: warning non-fiction, from the interbellum (Stefan Zweigs Yesterday’s worldThomas Manns Achtung, Europe!) and of more recent date (On tyranny and On freedom from Timothy Snyder). But also, with young and older, children’s literature: for example Pim Lammers’ The lamb that is a pig.
The assignment was: bring a book that “symbolizes hope, freedom and togetherness,” said the initiators, a collaboration of Pen Nederland, part of the global organization for free expression, and the ILFU, the Utrecht literature festival kicking off this weekend. For the free word is “under fire” due to “undemocratic movements” that advance. De Mars also heralded the Week of the Forbidden Book, an initiative of Libraries. According to the organization, “more than a thousand” people participated in the friendly march of, anyway, “concerned readers.”
No longer obvious
Forbidding books is not only a foreign story, it sounds to the organizers and many participants. Angelique Seuren has The Color Purple Van Alice Walker Mee, a novel that is always on the list of most often attacked books in American libraries, due to explicit sex and violence. “I grew up in the sixties and seventies, and the freedom we had then to discover who you are and what you want, I also give new generations,” says Seuren. He is no longer self -evident, she notices during her work in the library. “There is more discussion among younger colleagues about what is and what is not possible, for example when it comes to gay characters. There is a tendency to be careful and cautious about it.”
“Nobody can decide what someone else can read,” says Nicolette van der Linden, teacher at a primary school. She refers to the recurring fuss for the Week of the Spring jitters, by conservative organizations that campaigning against the ‘sexualization’ of children. “Books about sex education are banned from schools, because the content would be pornographic. First of all that is not, but I also find it harmful that adults believe that you should determine that for children. That way you keep them stupid.”
Aggression or intimidation
In 2023, actions from a conservative corner led to severe threats against children’s book writer Pim Lammers. He is not the only one: two in ten writers have had to deal with aggression or intimidation in the past year, it turned out Recent research by Ipsos. “The open-mindedness is gone with many writers,” says Marcella van der Kruk, board member of PEN Nederland and publisher Non-fiction at Uitgeverij Atlas Contact. “More and more often they wonder: do I have to write this down, or do I pay for it with my safety? The freedom to write what you want is not a matter of course, it requires courage.”
These discussions are also a concern for David Rozema, from the Dutch Library organization Probiblio Initiator of the Week of the Forbidden Book. “Not only in the US. There was a mayor in Venice who wanted to remove a children’s book from the library because a non-traditional form of family was prevented. Such a removal is not allowed, because the independence of libraries is established internationally, but it is a difficult conversation for a library, because the government is also your financier.”
In the Netherlands it regularly clashes around school libraries, if public libraries provide the book collection for special education. “We understand that strict religious schools would rather not Harry Potter want because of the witchcraft, but they sometimes also refuse a children’s book like Bob Popcornwhere a family with two fathers occurs. As a public library you don’t want to deny that reality. And a school on the Biblebelt that The Secret Annex Van Anne Frank refused because passages in which she writes about sexual fantasies does it not go through? ”
Russian books
Sexual freedom is one of the most frequently mentioned sensitive themes in Utrecht. Sasha Jeremiasse sticks the “very ordinary detective” Love Like Blood From Mark Billingham in the air, “because I am happy that my favorite writer is writing about a queer relationship, without being censored.” Furthermore, the autocratic tendencies of democratically chosen rulers keep the participants busy. Writer Ronald Giphart wears The sunk from Jeroen Brouwers with him. “Brouwers writes: Essential to a democracy is not only that you have to be able to attack those in power, but also that those in power creates the conditions in which they can be tackled. I had to think about that when I read this week about the dismissed talk show himmy Kimmel.”
“What I was shocked by,” says writer and Ilfu editor-in-chief Gijs Wilbrink, “was what a Ukrainian cultural attaché recently told me: that if the Russian army is taking it, they first of all collect the Ukrainian books and put them on. They did not let that alarm, alarm. ‘Left hobby’? Since the Russian invasion, sales in the Ukrainian book market have increased by 37 percent, Wilbrink knows. “A people in need suddenly becomes very aware of the importance of literature.”