The publisher released a book about the director, coloring out part of the text with the permission of the copyright holder due to laws on LGBT propaganda
Moscow. 25th of April. INTERFAX.RU – AST Publishing House reported that it has painted over part of the text in Roberto Carnero’s book “Pasolini. Dying for Ideas” with the consent of the copyright holder, and its full version cannot be published in the Russian Federation due to legislation on LGBT propaganda (LGBT is recognized as an extremist movement in Russia and prohibited).
“In accordance with the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation, including Article 6.21 of the Administrative Code “Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences, gender reassignment,” part of the text of this work has been painted over, it is impossible to display it completely,” the publisher said in a telegram message -channel of the publishing group “Eksmo-AST”.
AST notes that such a solution is not universal.
The publisher notes that, as a rule, foreign publishers of non-fiction do not agree to abbreviations and edits of the original text of the manuscript. But in this case, the copyright holder approved AST’s proposal and the current version in Russia was released with his permission.
AST called this decision “forced so that the publication could see the light of day.”
“Coloring out fragments of text is a more honest choice than simply cutting out paragraphs as if they were not in the book. This practice of publishing books with retouched fragments that do not comply with legal requirements is already widely used in Russian publishing houses,” the statement said.
It is also noted that in this way “Roberto Carnero’s work has become interactive: the reader himself decides whether to use any sources of information to find out what is hidden from him in this version of the publication.”
“Thanks to the presence of hidden fragments, a connection between the source text and the modern context in which we live here and now arises. In addition, the book becomes an artifact of the era, an attribute of performance, artistic expression. It is no coincidence that the name of the series in which the publication was published is “Picture of Time.” Perhaps the signal copy of the book will soon become an exhibit in one of the museums of modern art,” AST believes.
Earlier, photographs of pages of Roberto Carnelo’s book about the work of the Italian director, poet and prose writer Piero Paolo Pasolini “Pasolini. To Die for Ideas” appeared on social networks, where instead of text there are stripes of black paint.
On April 22, the press service reported that, based on the conclusion of the Expert Center at the Russian Book Union, AST withdrew from sale Vladimir Sorokin’s novel “Heritage”, which was published at the end of 2023, as well as the novels of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham “The House at the End of the World” (1990) and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (1956). The experts came to the conclusion that these works contained signs of an offense falling under Article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences, gender reassignment). On April 23, AST suspended the sale of Hanya Yanagihara’s novels “A Little Life” and Madeleine Miller’s “The Song of Achilles” after receiving a warning from the prosecutor’s office and pending a full expert opinion regarding the presence of signs of an offense under Article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
