World writers decry censorship at Swedish literary meet

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

STOCKHOLM (AFP) — Bangladeshi novelist-in-hiding Taslima Nasreen joined international writers gathered at a literary conference in Stockholm Tuesday to deplore how censorship and persecution affect their work.

"By writing books, I wanted to do something constructive ... as a result, the fundamentalists ... demanded my execution by hanging," Nasreen said in an address at the Writers' and Literary Translators' International Congress (WALTIC) in the Swedish capital.

"The government instead of taking action against them (the extremists) took action against me ... I was thrown out of my country by the government," added the Bangladeshi author who has been banished from both her country of origin and her adopted home in India over her Islam-critical books.

The...