Brazil’s unparalleled spate of book bans is page out of US culture wars
It started with a social media video: a school principal from a medium-sized Brazilian city lashed out against an award-winning novel, saying it was “disgusting” and disrespectful of “good manners”.
In less than a week, three other states also banned O Avesso da Pele, by Jeferson Tenório – published in the UK as The Dark Side of Skin – from their schools.
Last week, O menino marrom (The Brown Kid), a children’s novel first published 40 years ago ago by one of the most celebrated Brazilian authors, Ziraldo Alves Pinto, was banned in Minas Gerais state. The week before, the same had happened in São Paulo with another book about female scientists.
Although scattered through different states and cities, the cases have a common factor: there are usually politicians behind them, and in most cases, they support the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
“The bolsonarista strategy is one of hatred … of choosing a target to attack and creating the idea of an enemy,” said Tenório. “My book was the target then, just as others are now.”
