(På engelska, då orig-inlägget var på utländsk lista. --AE)
Lionel Shriver tend to cause uproars as she provoces the Politically Correctly
minded. And Sweden - a PC superpower - is no exception.
Her latest novel has been rejected by her Swedish publisher on poltical
grounds, and the resulting brawl fills the cultural sections of the newspapers.
For the Swedish quotes I use Google with all its cultural appropriation...
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=https://www.expressen.se/kultur/bocker/sverige-behover-inte-fler-kangor-till-muslimer/&prev=search
Ordfront is criticized for the decision not to release Lionel Shriver's new
book, referring to /her/ view of Muslims. ... slentrian criticism of Muslims
that ultimately made me do not want to publish the book - kidding Muslims is
everyday food in the stupid Swedish debate, I do not need to convey more of it.
Nollie, as I interpret as Shriver's alter ego, has a generally predictable
critical attitude towards Muslims, saying, inter alia, that Germany has been
taken over by Turks, there is no point in speaking German there.
"https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=https://www.expressen.se/kultur/slarviga-anklagelser-om-islamkritik-gynnar-ingen/&prev=search
Extreme accusations of Islam criticism favors none ... Hynek Pallas has read
"The Mandibles" and sees a comedy that reveals our contemporary. ... "Dystopic
fiction is not about the future. It treats today's fears - the biggest monster
in the wardrobe. " ...trying out the future of the future gives us the
opportunity to wonder what we can do wrong. The Greek words that put together
"dystopia" mean "bad place".
So I bounced when I read an interview with Lionel Shriver in The Guardian
(14/4) who told her she lost her Swedish publisher over just dystopin "The
Mandibles".
"There is a /side issue/ in The Mandibles about immigration, and all that is
the slightest minor negative about immigration is poison stamped in Sweden."
... Best can be "The Mandibles" described as a family burial of the American
dream. Four generations of the Mandible family find themselves in 2029 in
different parts of the middle class when the United States suffers from an
economic crisis. Society collapses and their family wealth is being erased.
Shriver - never a dull writer, but just as entertaining and insightful -
sprawling with thoughts about what today's way of life in the western world can
lead to. ... What Shriver does not do, however, is to /slander/ Islam. I read
with /a magnifying glass/ and find two passages in "The Mandibles" that are all
about the case, and can be interpreted as negative to Muslims. A total of 13
rows in a book of 516 pages. Both times are thoughts of character , one of
which has already been referred to as racist. That's all.
More:
"Too Toxic for Ordfront":
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.svb.se/nyheter/giftig-ordfront&prev=search
"Swedish publisher don't want to publish Shriver's book":
https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2018-05-27/svenskt-forlag-vill-inte-ge-ut-shrivers-bok
(this article is in dozens of papers)
And:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/lionel-shriver-dropped-from-prize-judges-over-diversity-comments
Lionel Shriver has been dropped from the judging panel for a writing
competition run by magazine Mslexia, after the author slammed publisher Penguin
Random House for its diversity and inclusion policies. ... dismissing Penguin
Random House’s goal to have a more diverse staff and author list by 2025 as a
sign that the publisher was “drunk on virtue”.
"From now until 2025, literary excellence will be secondary to ticking all
those ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual preference and crap-education
boxes," she wrote. "We can safely infer from that email that if an agent
submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of
school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter, it will be
published, whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering
and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling."
Her column:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/when-diversity-means-uniformity/
Earlier she caused walk-outs from a literary festival in Australia when she
criticised the ideas of " cultural appropriation" and "identity politics":
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/10/as-lionel-shriver-made-light-of-identity-i-had-no-choice-but-to-walk-out-on-her
I have fixed some Google translated words which lacked in /p/o/l/i/t/i/c/a/l
correctness. I have never been a fan of forced "diversity" or the extremist
idea that if you're not in group XYZ you can't write abouyt XYZ. "Diversity"
policies means discrimination, aginst those who are locked out. And claiming
that individual's interests lies in being lumped together in a huge collective
is devastating.
I haven't read Lionel Shriver. Perhaps I should.
--Ahrvid
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