Lawrence Hill
Published: 2013-03-20
Total Pages: 57
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Back Cover In 2011, Canadian writer Lawrence Hill received an email from a man in the Netherlands stating that he intended to burn The Book of Negroes, Hill's internationally acclaimed novel. Soon, the threat was international news, affecting Hill's publishers and readers. In this provocative essay, Hill shares his private response to that moment and the controversy that followed, examining his reaction to the threats, while attempting to come to terms with the book burner's motives and complaints. Drawing on other instances of book banning and burning, Hill maintains that censorship is still alive and well, even in this age of access to information. All who are interested in literature, freedom of expression and human rights will appreciate this passionate defence of the freedom to read and write. Front Flap "In June of 2011, less than a month after launching the Dutch edition of my novel, The Book of Negroes, in The Netherlands, I received the most surprising email of my life. It is worth quoting verbatim: 'Dear Sir Lawrence Hill, We, descendants of enslaved in the former Dutch colony Suriname, want let you know that we do not accept a book with the title "The book of Negroes." We struggle for a long time to let the word "nigger" disappears from Dutch language and now you set up your book of Negroes! A real shame! That's why we make the decision to burn this book on the 22nd of June 2011.. Sincerely, Roy Groenberg, Chairman Foundation Honor and Restore Victims of Slavery in Suriname' I wrote a reply that, in retrospect, seems outrageously Canadian in its politeness and tact." Back Flap: Lawrence Hill is a Canadian novelist and writer of non-fiction. His best-known work, The Book of Negroes, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Roger's Writer's Trust Prize, and CBC's Canada Reads; internationally it was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It has sold more than 600,000 copies in Canada alone. In 2012, he received the Freedom to Read Award from the Writers' Union of Canada. Lawrence Hill lives in Hamilton, Ontario. Visit him at www.lawrencehill.com.