A last-minute decision to pull out copies of a book dealing with gay experiences from Morocco’s biggest cultural event has stirred social media furry over what the author says is censorship of LGBT literature.
The writer, Fatima Zahra Amzkar, was informed that a signing ceremony she scheduled at the International Book Fair in Rabat was canceled a day before the fair’s opening.
Amzkar was expected to attend the anticipated fair to present her book, “Lesbian Diaries,” issued earlier this year by Acura Publishing.
The Moroccan writer took to her Facebook to voice her frustration at the decision, writing: “At a time when the world celebrates Pride month, a Moroccan writer is under attack because of a signing ceremony that was scheduled for Sunday, for nothing but the fact that she wrote about a segment of the LGBT community.”
“The book was banned from the exhibition, and the ceremony was canceled for reasons we don’t know,” she continued.
In a statement to Hespress AR, the writer said that she was not very shocked by the news when the publishing house informed her about it, “I was expecting this, and I wondered to myself if it was a new degree of acceptance we’ve reached in Morocco when the news of the publication went unnoticed.”
Amzkar assured she was “not shocked by the news of the ban and cancellation,” but rather “the attacks, insults, and defamation from people who did not even bother reading the novel, and took to judgments based on the title alone.”
A Hespress AR source from within the book fair management confirmed that the forty copies of the book had been withdrawn from the fair, but stated that the cancellation of the event and subsequent withdrawal of Amzkar’s participation is due to the fair’s application process, which was not respected.
According to the source, “the book was not in the initial list citing works that will be part of the fair.” It was only after the administration found out, that they withdrew this participation, as it “displayed in an illegal, illicit way, violating the norms and laws of the book fair.”
Opinions on this cancellation across social media are split. While some are “satisfied with the authorities’ intervention” to exclude Amzkar and her novel from the fair, others are calling out the “blatant homophobia” and “free speech repression and censorship” Amzkar has been subjected to.
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