The Banal Reality of Censoring Books in China

Once a publisher accepts a book – editors and translators polish manuscripts, make corrections and offer suggestions on conciseness, logic or word choice. Some writers suggest that Chinese publishers go too far. “More authors and publishers are willing to accept censorship because the Chinese market is increasingly lucrative, even for university presses and trade publishers,” explains David Walsh, editor of the History News Network. Certain topics sell well in China; for example, one Deng Xiaoping biography sold 20 times more copies in China than in the United States. The most troubling form of censorship in China may be that some topics like Taiwan or Tibet are off limits. For publishers, though, the goal is to sell books. Walsh explains that a few Chinese publishers will risk careers and “take a chance on potentially lucrative politically edgy or sexually explicit content.” Critics may describe the censorship as “opaque," but literary devices and editing can be mysterious, too. Writers can rely on metaphors, parallelism, code and more to ignite curiosity among Chinese readers. – YaleGlobal