Yay or Nay?

I have received lot of reactions on the Internet and in the media to my forthcoming book  People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet. It will officially be released on 26 november and soon thereafter be available on amazon.com. 

Meanwhile I have signed a contract with the Hong Kong  publisher  UP publications for a Chinese translation of the book. The editor Chak interviewed me about the history of banned books for their monthly magazine Life and Reading Culture.  I talked about the 1960s ban of Jean Genet’s books in the USA and said “I just hope that my book will not be banned in China.” I asked him if he thought it would be safe in China. He said he was not sure and pointed to the stuffed animal on my desk, the Chinese anti-censorship animal  grass mud horse (ca0 ni ma) . The problem would be the horse. Now I need to think about a horse-less version of People’s Pornography. 

For many years I have been asked to censor my publications and take out all kinds of sexually explicit images or vulgar language. I have always tried to compromise but somehow cannot separate from the horse –all the surreal motions of of power and lust that it represents–how it allowed me to project my own fables and finish my book. 

So do you think that the book can exist without reference to the grass-mud horse?