The International Publishers Association is extremely concerned at reports from the Dominican Republic that the Ministry of Education will be nationalizing textbook production, thereby eliminating choice for teachers from a range of educational resources from a variety of publishers.
A great session on the Freedom to Publish, titled "Pressure on Publishers: Challenging norms and navigating controversy," will be offered as part of IPA's programming at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Thailand has banned a forthcoming book titled "Rama X: The Thai Monarchy under King Vajiralongkorn" by editor Pavin Chachavalpongpun before its publication. The ban, announced in the Royal Gazette, prohibits the order and import of the book, citing concerns about defamation towards the royal family from the government of Thailand.
PEN America has published a report titled "Booklash: Literary Freedom, Online Outrage, and the Language of Harm."
On 25 July, a coalition including Texas bookstores, national booksellers, authors and publishers filed suit in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, challenging a new Texas law that would require independent bookstores, national chain bookstores, large online book retailers, book publishers and other vendors to review and rate millions of books and other library materials according to sexual content if those books are sold to school libraries, and to do so according to vague labels dictated by the state without any process for judicial review.
As censorship threats continue to target libraries, schools, publishers, authors, and booksellers in the USA, the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) are calling on all members of the book community to affirm their commitment to the Freedom to Read Statement on its 70th anniversary. They are joined by the Authors Guild and American Booksellers Association as well as numerous other signatories.
On 1 July, Victoria Amelina, Ukrainian author and war crimes documentarist, succumbed to wounds suffered during the bombing of Kramatorsk on Tuesday 27 June.
The second edition of WEXFO opened under a warm, blue Lillehammer sky on 22 May. Its ambitious programme was spread across 4 days and made up of 4 different events with the addition of a parallel WEXFO Youth programme.
