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Title: God's police damn whores
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Published: Nov 18, 2007
Author: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/gods
Post Date: 2007-11-18 22:06:39 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 118
Comments: 4
God's police damn whores * * Email * Printer friendly version * Normal font * Large font Robert Tait ,Tehran November 19, 2007 Advertisement IRAN'S straitlaced censors are not known for their tolerance of sexually risque literature, so a book called Memories of My Melancholy Whores was never likely to meet with their approval. But in their determination to get Gabriel Garcia Marquez's acclaimed work into bookshops, publishers hit on an audacious ruse: they sanitised its title. As a result, the normally vigilant Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry's officials waved through the publication of the innocuously named Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts. Now the ministry has reversed its decision, after conservative media drew attention to the book's original title and pointed out that the plot concerns a 90-year-old man who paid to sleep with hundreds of women and has now fallen in love with a child prostitute. Publication rights were withdrawn after all 5000 copies sold out within three weeks. Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi, Iran's Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister, said the book was being banned on grounds of "immorality" and said a negligent official had now been sacked. He also said the Iranian publisher, Niloofar, would be held accountable, despite arguments that the ministry was legally responsible for the mistake. Garcia Marquez's book is the latest in a series by world-famous authors to be banned amid tightening censorship by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Government. Many previously available books, including bestsellers and classics as well as academic texts, have been deemed unsuitable. Colombian-born Garcia Marquez is one of the most popular authors in Iran. The author of Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude had been due to visit Tehran this year but cancelled, citing ill health. The campaign against his book was led by the right-wing Tabnak website, which argued that the decision to approve it had been influenced by Iran's friendly relations with left-wing Latin American leaders. Garcia Marquez's friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro led officials to overlook the novel's content, the website said. GUARDIAN
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
I've heard that one is good. Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
It is a very good novel , I read it years ago when I still read fiction.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Turning point in a persons life.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
#2. To: robin (#1)
#3. To: tom007 (#2)
years ago when I still read fiction.
#4. To: tom007 (#0)
interesting titles
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