State withdraws books by inconvenient authors from libraries – culture group

June 14, BPN. School libraries have received a list of 33 writers whose books should be withdrawn from circulation, the Belarusian Council for Culture reports.

The list includes Nobel Prize laureate for literature Śviatłana Aleksijevič, as well as Alhierd Bacharevič, Viktar Marcinovič, Uładzimir Arłoŭ and others. They were members of the outlawed Union of Belarusian Writers.

This is not the first assault on literature by the authorities. Earlier this year, they reportedly put Bacharevič’s novel Dogs of Europe on a list of extremist materials, and also banned the distribution of George Orwell’s 1984.