Kuwaiti authorities have banned a book by Russian literary giant Fyodor Dostoyevsky, one of nearly 1,000 titles blacklisted at a festival which opened yesterday in the country.
Saad Al Anzi, who heads the Kuwait International Literary Festival, told AFP the information ministry had banned 948 books including Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a novel set in 19th century Russia that explores morality, free will and the existence of God.
Dostoyevsky joins a growing list of writers banned in Kuwait.
More than 4,000 books have been blacklisted by the information ministry over the past five years, including Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Gabo to his fans.
All titles on show at the 43rd edition of Kuwait’s book fair, which runs through November 24, were screened in advance by a censorship committee as per Kuwaiti regulations.
The committee works under a 2006 law on “press and publications”, which outlines a string of punishable offences for publishers of both literature and journalism.
Offences include insulting Islam or Kuwait’s judiciary, threatening national security, “inciting unrest” and committing “immoral” acts.