Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship

In this collection of eight essays, South African novelist J. M. Coetzee examines the complexities of censorship beyond the model of villainous censor and victimized artist. Having lived in a police state, Coetzee's experience is that "the same censors patrol the boundaries of both politics and esthetics." By contrast, in the United States, the way for artists to get away with representations that some find offensive or forbidden is to argue that their work has some political worth. Though Coetzee admits he doesn't know what to think of artists who "break taboos and yet claim protection of the law," he remains committed to free speech, conscious of how easily oppressive righteousness can rear its viscous head.