Laila Lalami

My apologies for the lack of posts this week.  I’ve been sick, and my enormous workload isn’t helping.  I hope to have something in this space soon.

Moroccan judges seem to be in a competition to find out who will issue the most excessive, most ridiculous, and most embarrassing ruling for the country. The latest example comes from the town of Ait Ourir in the province of Marrakech, where a high school student named Yassine Belassal was arrested, tried, and promptly sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for insult to the king because he allegedly wrote “God, Nation, Barça” on the blackboard.

Morocco’s motto is ‘God, Nation, King’; Barça is the Spanish soccer team FC Barcelona.

Belassal is in his senior year and also a national champion in karate.  He may or may not have had legal representation at his speedy trial; he may have written the motto on a wall outside or on the blackboard in class; he may have acted alone, or with a group of three friends; his last name might be Belassal or Ait Ben-Lassal—the facts of the case are somewhat unclear. What is clear, however, is that he is now in prison, serving a sentence at the Boulmharez jail, for what seems like a harmless case of football hyperbole.

You can find out more about the case from Al Massae (in Arabic) or El Mundo and El Pais (in Spanish.) For some legal background, check out the blog of Ibn Kafka. There is also a Facebook group.

The BBC reports that the British Library has digitized some rare recordings of fifty-seven 20th-century writers’ voices. The collection includes the only known recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice (my God, not at all as I had imagined it!). You can also listen to a comment by John Steinbeck about the context and process of writing The Grapes of Wrath. I wish all of the archive were available online, but it’s not.

I was asked to guest-edit an issue of the Nigerian magazine Farafina, and I am thrilled to report that some of the contents are now online: fiction by Hisham Matar, poetry by Mathew Shenoda, essays by Anouar Majid, Wail S. Hassan, and Karim Kettani, criticism by Nouri Gana, artwork by Lalla Essaydi, and photography by Hoda Mana, Simona Schneider, and Alex Yera.

Subscribers should be getting their copies in a couple of weeks.  If you don’t subscribe yet, you can go here.

I am running around this morning trying to finish a few things before heading out to USC to give a talk. Here are the details, in case you’re in the area:

Monday, October 20, 2008
12:30pm to 2:00pm
University Park Campus
Social Sciences Building B-40
Free

See you there!

Last fall, at the Ferrara festival of literature, I was lazily waiting for my turn at the coffee shop when I noticed a bunch of policemen sweep through the lobby and enter the auditorium where the authors present their books. The Carabinieri were there to protect Roberto Saviano, the journalist who has exposed the workings of the Camora (the Neapolitan mafia) in his book Gomorrah. He has been under police protection for two years already but now the Camora goons have announced that they want him dead by Christmas. Saviano says he wants to flee Italy.

Remember that awkward exchange between McCain and one of his voters? (She: “[Obama] is an Arab.” “No. No, Ma’am. He’s a decent family man.”) Here is Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi’s take on it:

A 38-year-old man from Iowa is facing a 20-year prison sentence for allegedly possessing Japanese comic books that the government deems “obscene,” because they supposedly depict teens engaging in sexual acts. No photographic images were found in his possession–only comic drawings published in Japan, a small portion of which involved depictions of sex acts.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which usually helps cartoonists with legal matters, is taking a special interest in the case; it is the first time a private collector is being prosecuted:

Handley’s case began in May 2006 when he received an express mail package from Japan that contained seven Japanese comic books. That package was intercepted by the Postal Inspector, who applied for a search warrant after determining that the package contained cartoon images of objectionable content. Unaware that his materials were searched, Handley drove away from the post office and was followed by various law enforcement officers, who pulled him over and followed him to his home. Once there, agents from the Postal Inspector’s office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Special Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and officers from the Glenwood Police Department seized Handley’s collection of over 1,200 manga books or publications; and hundreds of DVDs, VHS tapes, laser disks; seven computers, and other documents. Though Handley’s collection was comprised of hundreds of comics covering a wide spectrum of manga, the government is prosecuting images appearing in a small handful.

You can read about the case here. The thing I find strange about it is the fact that drawings, which are products of the imagination, just like novels, can be considered obscene and subject to child pornography laws. And where does one stop? Would Utamaro’s woodblock print Lovers in an Upstairs Room, which has been exhibited in museums around the world, fall under this same category?

(via Neil Gaiman’s blog)