Lawrence Hill - Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book: An Anatomy of a Book Burning

An Anatomy of a Book Burning

LAWRENCE HILL

Published by

The University of Alberta Press

Ring House 2

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1

www.uap.ualberta.ca

and

Canadian Literature Centre /

Centre de littrature canadienne

35 Humanities Centre

University of Alberta

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5

www.www.arts.ualberta.ca/clc

Copyright 2013 Lawrence Hill

Introduction copyright 2013 Ted Bishop

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hill, Lawrence, 1957

Dear Sir, I intend to burn your book [electronic resource] : an anatomy of a book burning / Lawrence Hill.

(Henry Kreisel memorial lecture series)

Co-published by Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littrature canadienne.

Electronic monograph.

Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-0-88864-708-5 (EPUB)

1. Censorship. 2. Books and readingPolitical aspects. 3. Intellectual freedom. 4. Freedom of expression. I. University of Alberta. Canadian Literature Centre II. Title. III. Series: Henry Kreisel lecture series (Online)

Z659.H552013323.44C2013-901211-7

Print edition ISBN 978-0-88864-679-8

First edition, rst printing, 2013.

First electronic edition, 2013.

Digital conversion by Transforma Pvt. Ltd.

Copyediting by Peter Midgley.

Cover design by Alan Brownoff.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written consent. Contact the University of Alberta Press for further details.

The Canadian Literature Centre acknowledges the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for the Henry Kreisel Lecture delivered by Lawrence Hill in April 2012 at the University of Alberta.

The University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from The Canada Council for the Arts. The University of Alberta Press also gratefully acknowledges the nancial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund (AMDF) for its publishing activities.

PERHAPS ABOVE ALL THE OTHER ACTIVITIES run by the Canadian Literature Centre, the Henry Kreisel Lecture Series realizes most fully the CLCs mission to bring together in a meaningful way author, reader, student and professor of Canadian writing in English and French. The CLC was established in 2006, thanks to a leadership gift by Edmontons noted bibliophile, Dr. Eric Schloss. Dr. Schloss continued support attests both to his generosity and to his great passion for the literatures of this country.

The Kreisel Lectures are delivered by such passionately engaged and major award-winning authors as Joseph Boyden, Wayne Johnston, Dany Laferrire, Eden Robinson, Annabel Lyon, and most recently, Lawrence Hill. They foster an open and inclusive forum for critical thinking about Canadian writing certainly, but also about social and cultural issues that vividly and closely touch us personally and, more widely, as citizens. Take the fine points about social oppression, cultural identities, and sense of place treated by Boyden, or the sometimes tumultuous encounter of history and fiction experienced by Johnston. Consider both the pains of exile and the joys of migrancy brought forth by Laferrire, or the personal and communal ethics of storytelling that Robinson tackles. The ancient past and the contemporary moment come together through Lyons discussion of the creative process of historical fiction. And here in these remarkable pages, Hill makes an appealingly personal and politically convincing plea for the urgent need of an informed conversation about book censorship.

The lectures in this Kreisel Series confront the important questions of our time, those that touch us deeply as readers and thinkersas women and men, as Canadians, and as contemporary social individuals. In the spirit of true and honest dialogue, they do so with the thoughtfulness and depth as well as the humour and elegance which all characterize, in one way or another, the work of the six incredibly talented writers featured in the Kreisel Series so far.

These public lectures set out to honour Professor Henry Kreisels legacy in an annual public forum. Author, University Professor and Officer of the Order of Canada, Henry Kreisel was born in Vienna into a Jewish family in 1922. He left his homeland for England in 1938 and was interned in Canada for eighteen months during the Second World War. After studying at the University of Toronto, he began teaching in 1947 at the University of Alberta, and served as Chair of English from 1961 until 1970. He served as Vice-President (Academic) from 1970 to 1975, and was named University Professor in 1975, the highest scholarly award bestowed on its faculty members by the University of Alberta. Professor Kreisel was an inspiring and beloved teacher who taught generations of students to love literature and was one of the first people to bring the experience of the immigrant to modern Canadian literature. He died in Edmonton in 1991. His works include two novels, The Rich Man (1948) and The Betrayal (1964), and a collection of short stories, The Almost Meeting (1981). His internment diary, alongside critical essays on his writing, appears in Another Country: Writings By and About Henry Kreisel (1985).

The generosity of Professor Kreisels teaching at the University of Alberta and his influence on modern Canadian literature profoundly inspire the CLC in its public outreach, research pursuits, and continued commitment to the ever-growing richness and diversity of Canadas literatures. The Centre embraces Henry Kreisels no less than pioneering focus on the knowledge of ones own literatures. It embraces the understanding of the complicated and difficult world which informs Canadian writings and which may well be bettered and transformed by them.

MARIE CARRIRE

Director, Canadian Literature Centre

Edmonton, February 2013

PEUT-TRE PLUS QUE TOUTE AUTRE ACTIVIT mene par le Centre de littrature canadienne, les confrences Kreisel ralisent intgralement la mission du CLC de rassembler de manire constructive auteur, lecteur, tudiant et professeur de littrature canadienne dexpression anglaise et franaise. Le CLC a t cr en 2006 grce au don directeur du bibliophile illustre edmontonien, le docteur Eric Schloss. Lappui continu du docteur Schloss tmoigne de sa gnrosit et sa grande passion vis--vis des littratures du Canada.

Les confrenciers Kreisel comptent parmi eux Joseph Boyden, Wayne Johnson, Dany Laferrire, Eden Robinson, Annabel Lyon et plus rcemment Lawrence Hill, tous des auteurs passionnment engags et laurats de prix importants. Les confrences favorisent un forum ouvert et inclusif pour la pense critique, au sujet certes des crits du Canada, mais aussi des questions sociales et culturelles qui nous saisissent comme individus et comme citoyens plus largement. Pensons aux fines observations de Boyden sur loppression sociale, les identits culturelles et lide du lieu, ou la rencontre parfois tumultueuse de lhistoire et la fiction vcue par Johnston. Tenons compte des preuves de lexil et des joies de la migrance avances par Laferrire, ou de lthique personnelle et communautaire de la narration traite par Robinson. Lantiquit et le contemporain se runissent dans la communication de Lyon au sujet du mode cratif de la fiction historique. Et dans les pages remarquables qui suivent, il est fort intressant de lire le plaidoyer politique et personnel de Hill pour le besoin urgent dune conversation informe sur la censure des livres.