US bowdlerization of children’s book/Rotraut Susanne Berner und die USA

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Something in this picture was too much for Boyds Mills Press in the USA. They wanted to publish a translation of Rotraut Susanne Berner’s children’s book, but without this picture and another picture of a nude, both exhibits in an art gallery. The author insisted on the censorship being made obvious, for example by the pictures being blacked out, so it seems the book is unlikely to appear. Die Welt writes:

Erst im Februar hatten US-Bibliotheken ein preisgekröntes Kinderbuch aus ihren Regalen verbannt, weil auf der ersten Seite das Wort „scrotum“ (Hodensack) vorkam. Zuvor geriet selbst „Harry Potter“ wegen angeblicher Bezüge zum Satanismus unter Beschuss der selbst ernannten Sittenwächter.

Author’s nude drawings too hot for US publisher, from the Independent.
Kein deutscher Mini-Penis für die USA, from Die Welt (with 4 illustrations).

LATER NOTE: for visitors from the Absolute Write Water Cooler, here’s the other offending picture:

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This subject is generating as much traffic as my old entry on how IKEA names its furniture.

6 thoughts on “US bowdlerization of children’s book/Rotraut Susanne Berner und die USA

  1. Absolutely ridiculous, but not that surprising. An American well-wisher recently wrote to me to let me know that it would be rather pointless for me to try and get American clients, as they would surely be offended by the name of my company and wouldn’t want to be associated with it.

  2. The ‘Open Europe’ people have spun that one right around. Far from ‘gloating’ or admitting to anything, Amato is clearly _criticizing_ the course adopted (by a body of which he is not a member).

    There is an interview with Amato at
    http://www.taurillon.org/Luci-ed-ombre-sull-Europa
    in which he explicitly deplores the decision, as _he_ sees it, to make the treaty unreadable:
    “…da questo punto di vista

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