Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book “Memories of My Melancholy Whores”, the Persian translation of which was published under the title: “Memories of my Melancholy Sweethearts”, has been cleared off the stalls and banned, three weeks after its publication. The book was published after receiving the necessary official permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
In this novel, which he wrote at the age of 80, the author, who is a winner of the Nobel prize for literature, describes with originality the prostitutes who slept with the novel’s protagonist.
Persian translations of works of literature in Iran, including those of Marquez, face being banned not only on political grounds but also on grounds of Islamic religious law and moral values. Since Saffar Harandi was appointed as head the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in the government of Mahmud Ahmadinezhad, censorship has vastly increased. Although the Persian translation of Marquez’s novel had passed the Guidance Ministry’s censorship screening after having been “corrected”, nevertheless, it was confronted with criticisms by religious circles once it was published.
The “Tabnak” Website, affiliated to former Guards Corps Commander Mohsen Reza’i, who was also one of Ahmadinezhad’s rivals in the last presidential elections, began the first volley of attacks by accusing the Guidance Ministry of “issuing permits for the publication of anti-ethical books”.
Reacting to this and other criticizms by some religious circles, the Islamic Guidance minister issued the order for the book to be banned and cleared off the stalls. Harandi also ordered that those responsible for having issued the book’s permit should step down from their posts. He further blamed the book’s publisher, saying: “The publisher who brought out this book knowing what it was about, should also be accountable.”
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