Schäpers, Veronika: BArch, DR 1 / 2385 I was working on "Book 2" (a copyright project) and was exploring, among other things, the topic of "cancel culture in literature" and what a review of my previously published texts by a sensitivity reader would reveal. In the course of my research, I came across the printing authorization process in the GDR publishing industry and the efforts of many publishing employees to circumvent censorship through clever argumentation.
The Ministry of Culture writes in the Federal Archives: "The GDR constitution did not provide for censorship.
In fact, however, this took place under the substitute term of printing permission and affected almost all book production.
An interesting example of a GDR publication despite its critical content is the novel "If a Traveler on a Winter's Night" by the Cuban-born author Italo Calvino, who grew up in Italy. Although Calvino describes, among other things, the censorship authority of a repressive state .
In order to read Calvino's text, the reader has to open the sheets like a package and fan them out. Through use, the wax layer will gradually develop small white cracks, and over time the fine and fragile text may become completely illegible, its materiality disappearing, but the content will have impressed itself on the reader.
Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore, ger., Polymer clichés, screen printing, Toshaban paper, Mitsumata paper, Rayon paper, acrylic glass box, 18p, 6.9 x 13.1 inch, Ed. of 15 + 8, num., sign., Karlsruhe, 2023 Request of availability backnext