Stories in the pages of a censorship debate

A child’s viewpoint · March 1995

In her 29 March 1995 introduction to an Index on Censorship selection, Uta Ruge places fiction beside arguments about the death penalty, political repression and the people required to participate in executions. She specifically describes a Rabihavi story in which a child observes the everyday presence of execution in Iran, in this instance the execution of a homosexual man. Source 1

The introduction names Rabihavi but gives no title for that story and does not supply its full text. It documents how the fiction was presented to German readers, while leaving the contribution’s original title and translation credit unresolved. Source 1

David · May 1997

Ruge’s 7 May 1997 introduction explicitly names two short stories: David by Rabihavi and Quasimodo by Liu Zili. She says these could not be published in their countries of origin. Her wider introduction considers press restrictions and the instability of national, political and linguistic boundaries, placing the stories within a discussion of who is permitted to speak. Source 2

David is a named publication lead, rather than a story whose complete original has been read here. The 1997 introduction does not establish that it is the unnamed work described in 1995. The two dates and those different levels of identification therefore remain separate. Source 1 · Source 2

Sources & credits

1. Uta Ruge · Index on Censorship, 29 March 1995

   taz issue 4582, page 14. Ruge’s complete short editorial introduces a death-penalty selection and specifically describes an unnamed Rabihavi story told from a child’s viewpoint. The story itself and its original title are not supplied by the introduction.

2. Uta Ruge · Index on Censorship, 7 May 1997

   Ruge’s complete short taz editorial explicitly names David by Rabihavi alongside Quasimodo by Liu Zili. It introduces the selected stories but does not reproduce David or identify it with the unnamed Rabihavi story mentioned in 1995.