{"id":1516,"date":"2025-03-11T12:18:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T09:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/susma24.com\/en\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2025-10-08T17:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T14:08:18","slug":"imagination-versus-delicate-sensibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susma24.com\/en\/index.php\/imagination-versus-delicate-sensibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagination versus delicate sensibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASLI TOHUMCU<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories <\/em>by Ray Bradbury always sits within arm\u2019s reach on my bedside table. Sadly, it\u2019s a masterpiece all too often overlooked, in which Bradbury reflects on the experiences and narratives that culminated in his famous novel Fahrenheit 451<\/em>. These tales unfold in a world where autocracy no longer needs to impose censorship, having instead resolved the issue by fostering a societythat has come to loathe the arts. In one story, we meet individuals who have committed to memory books that have become \u201cextinct.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another, a group of writers escapes to another planet to escape the state\u2019s fury at imagination. At the story\u2019s conclusion, the \u201cenemies of the arts\u201d track them down on the planet where they sought refuge; once they are killed, no one will remain on Earth to imagine. In this struggle, led by Edgar Allan Poe, the writers\u2019 sole weapon is, naturally, their imagination.<\/p>\n

I remember, as if it were yesterday, reading A Pleasure to Burn <\/em>about 15 or 20 years ago, and being amazed at how Bradbury could craft such stories, how he could conjure such profound darkness. Yet now, it feels as though it all unfolded just yesterday… There\u2019s a reason for this feeling, though I\u2019m not sure I can neatly articulate it. But I will try.<\/p>\n

For over 20 years, I have been writing children\u2019s book too. Yet it took me some time to realize that children\u2019s literature is often viewed as a tool or educational material for raising \u201cacceptable children.\u201d Some parents, despite limited literary discernment, would lodge surprising, unsettling objections founded solely on their parental authority. Naturally, parents have the right to determine what their children should not read, and we would navigate any individual protest by respecting that prerogative.<\/p>\n

At our events, we took the time to gently explain why a story\u2019s antagonist might speak harshly. When a parent who hoped her daughter would become a veterinary surgeon objected that the book\u2019s vet, sleeping outside the clinic all day, set a poor example, we patiently explained that this was a fictional character, and the portrayal served the story. At most, these occasional incidents amounted to little more than anecdotes and little jokes shared among publishers and writers.<\/p>\n

But then came the day when we were informed that parents at a school in provincial Anatolia objected to pigs, New Year\u2019s celebrations, and depictions of battles in the books assigned for Turkish language classes, and that they preferred child characters who behaved properly toward adults and avoided certain undesirable thoughts. New \u201csensitivities\u201d were raised almost daily, and the list kept growing. Before long, I, too, began to draw my share of complaints.<\/p>\n

During a school visit, some parents who had prevented their children from reading my book, selected by the head ofdepartment, and from attending the event nevertheless showed up in person to confront me afterward. The problem had to do with \u201cpoo.\u201d The child character, who constantly overheard conversations about their infant sibling\u2019s poo (how the baby pooed or didn\u2019t, what color it was, what consistency it had, and so on) was scolded when she spoke of it herself and, quite naturally, felt upset by the hypocrisy. Despite offering an explanation for the mention of poo in the book, I couldn\u2019t defuse the anger directed at me. As far as I know, there isn\u2019t a single person who doesn\u2019t poo. Yet it seemed we were free to doit, just not to write about it. If you dared, a crowd demanding answers was ready to trample you. That\u2019s what I learned that day.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, I learned that a children\u2019s book I deeply admired had been banned and would no longer be printed. Another bookbecame the subject of a court case, while yet another was withheld from reprint as the publisher sought to avoidcontroversy. In a book series that has been in print for nearly 20 years and has brought joy to tens of thousands ofchildren, the characters\u2019 nicknames were changed in a new edition because they were deemed \u201cfoul language.\u201d In one book, a child\u2019s underpants are visible as she rolls over; in another, characters discuss freedom and justice; in yet another, a boy wears a dress… Because these elements ruffled the feathers of some, others were denied the right to read.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let the past tense mislead you, today, the Board for Protecting Minors from Obscene Publications, affiliated with the Ministry of Family and Social Services, continues to work with commendable diligence, enforcing bans on the distribution and sale of numerous books while pursuing legal action against writers, translators, and publishers. They leave no stone unturned in their effort to expand the list of banned books at full speed.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s hardest-working, most efficient institution even operates a hotline, allowing ordinary citizens to file complaints andreport content they consider obscene whether by phone, email, or WhatsApp. Once they decide a publication is obscene, it is labeled \u201cHarmful to minors\u201d and banned from public display. Those over 18 can buy these books only in opaque envelopes, marked only with nothing but the book\u2019s title and the warning \u201cHarmful to minors.\u201d If they can find them, that is.<\/p>\n

We have reached a point where decisions are made on behalf of everyone about what children can and cannot read. This is done both by the state and by individuals. The latter can include ordinary parents or internet personalities, whose sole qualification often being that they have children. We can now say that state censorship has become almost redundant, as responsiblecitizens effectively manage the mechanisms of censorship by filing complaints and targeting books themselves.<\/p>\n

Writers sit at their desks with the ultimate goal of being read, yet the possibility of not being read remains a disturbing risk. How can they mitigate this?<\/p>\n

By choosing acceptable titles, addressing acceptable themes, and using acceptable language. I can use one of my ownbooks as an example of how book titles are changed. In my book Benim Babam K\u00f6t\u00fc \u00d6rnek <\/em>(\u201cMy Father is a Bad Example\u201d), the men of the family, who are afraid of doing any work at home, complain to the young girl about her father. They tell her that her father is a \u201cbad example\u201d for helping her mother with various tasks. This stems from their fear that they might be expected to do some work themselves. The mother, however, explains to her daughter that life is a shared responsibility, and what her father is doing is actually commendable. The little girl, undeterred by the opinions of others, chooses to continue living her life happily.<\/p>\n

The book was certainly well received by many readers, but more judged it by its cover, without even turning the page, saying, \u201cHow dare you call fathers a bad example?\u201d Teachers who had recommended it found themselves in trouble, and as aresult, the title was changed to Benim Babam \u0130yi \u00d6rnek <\/em>(\u201cMy Father is a Good Example\u201d) in a new edition. Never mind that the children who read it understood the joke. Thankfully, fathers and their prestige were spared.<\/p>\n

Another of my children\u2019s novels, the first in a trilogy, has now made its way back to my desk. A passage from this book, which has been in print for almost 15 years and read by tens of thousands, has recently provoked objections that I find too deplorable to elaborate on here. These objections have gone beyond parents merely barring their children from reading the book to complaining about me to the authorities\u2026 Although the book isn\u2019t in danger of being consigned to literature\u2019s graveyard, the prospect of it reaching far fewer children than before is disheartening enough. I find myself torn between excising the problematic section while keeping the plot intact, and rewriting it entirely.<\/p>\n

Such events deny readers their right to read and writers their creative freedom. Moreover, they risk ceding the field to authors whose lackluster, especially compliant works sail through censorship as \u201charmless.\u201d Children\u2019s literature risks becoming a barren landscape of formulaic works devoid of engaging plots, marred by tepid language, and incapable of nurturing any love of reading. We will see fewer representations of diverse families and children, and fewer books that let young readers discover worlds where they feel at home, foster empathy, and feed their imaginations. Literature itself will vanish, replaced by books scarcely distinguishable from educational materials, and that\u2019s because we currently lack organized coalitions of publishers and authors, with no unified, collective stance.<\/p>\n

Whether these personal anecdotes show that self-censorship is simply a survival tactic or that I have begun to backpedal, I frankly don\u2019t know. All I know is that they leave me feeling unsettled. My job is to craft stories that I love, not to pander to readers lacking the competence to read and comprehend or to appease prohibitionist sensibilities.<\/p>\n

Given that children\u2019s book sales are largely concentrated in schools, one possible solution might be to write for children who know what they are looking for on bookstore shelves and at fairs, rather than within the confines of schools. I\u2019m currently exploring this approach by writing a horror novel for children. It is ironic that the censorship and reactions I have encountered have led me to genres like horror and fantasy, which were once deemed risky. I will continue to exercise my imagination until the day comes when we become like one of Bradbury\u2019s heroes, memorizing books in a world bent on destroying them, though I hope I never have to become one of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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