Censorship, Discretion and their Circumstances

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the role played by censorship in general and regarding written texts in particular, by analysing in detail its influence in children’s and young people’s literature in different Latin American countries and in Brazil more specifically. Censorship, which is seen as an act of repression and violence, has affected many people’s lives in different countries, where dictatorships have tried to set the citizens’ pace by imposing the discretion of power and cowardice of the stronger against the weaker. If we take a glance at childhood, we can see that the prohibition of reading certain books necessarily leads to live with censorship and learning lessons that shall subsequently put into practice both in university teaching and in the exercise of journalism, as well as when it comes to write texts, where one’s impulse to express through mastery of symbolic language arises. In Brazil, children’s literature, which was despised by censors, created subtle, dense and challenging texts for smart, engaged readers. But in addition to prior censorship, there is also self-censorship. As far as children’s literature is concerned, adults -as mediators-play an important role because they should facilitate children’s access to good books instead of hindering it. Censorship, which is always subjective and arbitrary, cannot be accepted in any way.