Contains poetry and a few bits of short prose discussing censorship from:

• Abdullah Al-Udhari of Yemen,
  
• Adonis of Syria,
  
• Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine,
  
• Shams Langaroudi of Iran,
  
• Ahmad Shamloo of Iran,
  
• Vedat Turkali of Turkey,
  
• Nazim Hikmet of Turkey,
  
• Mehmet Yasin of Turkey,
  
• Jack Mapanje of Malawi,
  
• Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria,
  
• Min Lu of Burma (Myanmar)
  
• WS Rendra of Indonesia,
  
• Liu Hong Bin of China,
  
• Miroslav Holub of Czech Republic,
  
• Osip Mandelstam of Russia,
  
• Boris Slutsky of Russia,
  
• Agnes Gergely of Hungary,
  
• Jerzy Jarniewicz of Poland,
  
• Zdzislaw Jaskula of Poland,
  
• Bozor Sabir of Tajikistan,
  
• Goran Simic of Bosnia,
  
• Allen Ginsberg of the USA,
  
• Manlio Argueta of El Salvador,
  
• Raul Zurita of Chile,
  
• Chico Buarque De Holanda of Brazil,
  
• Anon of Ecuador, and
  
• Javier Heraud of Cuba.
  

All of this poetry is somehow banned from being published or distributed in the author's home country. Mostly for political reasons, I think, although there's at least one entry banned for indecent language (the US one which cannot be broadcast during certain hours). A number of the authors are exiles.

I strongly support, in principle, the idea of publishing things from authors that are banned in their own countries. However, so many of these poems were about political things that I couldn't relate to, or they felt clumsy (translation must be very difficult for poetry!). There were just about 6 poems that I really enjoyed. There were several essays included, too, on the subject of censorship. I found most of those interesting.

Here's one of the short poems that I liked, from Javier Heraud of Cuba:

Poem
No,
I don't
laugh
at death.
It's just
that I'm
not afraid to die
among
birds
and trees

Regardless, I did read the whole thing and I will be counting this toward the Olympic Challenge for the countries of: Malawi, Syria, and Tadjikistan.

This book is being shared as a bookray.
Guidelines:

• Please journal the book when you get it. Contact the next person in the list for their mailing address.
  
• When done, I'd like it if you take a minute to journal your impressions as well as note that you're sending the book on. I enjoy reading various people's feelings on books - we're bound to have different viewpoints!
  
• Yes, sometimes “life happens”. If you find yourself running behind or need to be skipped, etc., please PM me letting me know what’s up and we can work it out.
  
• I don't mind adding people after it starts ... just PM me if you want to join.
  

Participants (username /location/ shipping):
Sheepseeker / Germany / international
Katyan / Finland / Europe if possible

Sent to Sheepseeker on Friday, Nov 3.

Edited on Nov. 9 to say that an empty envelope has been delivered to Sheepseeker! Apparently, the glue on the envelope flap did not hold. This book seems to be refusing to have its journey censored or determined too closely. Sheepseeker is going to file a Lost&Found form to see if she can retrieve it.