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Brazil's unparalleled spate of book bans is page out of US culture
wars
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It started with a social media video: a school principal from a
medium-sized Brazilian city lashed out against an award-winning novel,
saying it was "disgusting" and disrespectful of "good manners".
The next day, the local department of education ordered all schools in
nearby cities to remove the book from their libraries.
In less than a week, three other states also banned O Avesso da Pele,
by Jeferson Tenório - published in the UK as The Dark Side of Skin -
from their schools.
The book ban in March, was the most high-profile in a series of such
cases which have proliferated in Brazil in recent years.
Works targeted for banning typically involve race, gender and the
LGBTQ+ communities.
Last week, O menino marrom (The Brown Kid), a children's novel first
published 40 years ago ago by one of the most celebrated Brazilian
authors, Ziraldo Alves Pinto, was banned in Minas Gerais state. The
week before, the same had happened in São Paulo with another book
about female scientists.
Although scattered through different states and cities, the cases have
a common factor: there are usually politicians behind them, and in
most cases, they support the former far-right president Jair
Bolsonaro.
"The _bolsonarista_ strategy is one of hatred … of choosing a target
to attack and creating the idea of an enemy," said Tenório. "My book
was the target then, just as others are now."
The Dark Side of Skin tells the story of a young Black man seeking to
uncover his family's history, marked by racism in Porto Alegre - the
capital of Brazil's southernmost state, which has the highest
proportion of white people.
The book - which in 2021 won Brazil's most prestigious literary award
as best novel - reached the school after being included in a federal
government reading incentive program. It was aimed at students over 15
years old.
The passage described as "disgusting" by the school principal in Santa
Cruz do Sul was a conversation between two teenagers praising each
other sexually.
But that specific passage is not representative of the work as a
whole, said Tenório who argued that it was not the reason why it was
banned.
"It's a book by a black author … that deals with racial issues and
police brutality," he said. "Brazil's south is a very conservative and
prejudiced region and this isn't the kind of subject they want to
discuss in the classroom."
The writer believes Brazil faces a "poorly finished copy of what's
happening in the US".
The American Library Association reported that 4,240 unique titles
were banned in US schools and libraries in 2023, more than in any
other year. Many of them are related to issues of LGBTQ+ communities
or race.
No similar survey has been carried out in Brazil, but experts agree
that cases are rising and have even drawn comparisons with censorship
during the 1964-85 military dictatorship, when the regime banned about
350 titles.
There is a fundamental difference, though.
"During the dictatorship, there was censorship legislation at a
federal level," said Sandra Reimão, a professor at the University of
São Paulo, author of a book on the subject.
"Now, the cases are from local authorities. There are school
principals, secretaries of small towns, state representatives, or
congressmen saying, 'In my school, in my town, this book will not
enter.'"
Sandra believes the recent years have seen the highest number of
incidents since Brazil returned to democracy in the late 1980s.
"Right-wing groups are trying to block any topic they consider harmful
to what they call traditional values," she said.
Researcher Marcele Frossard, who studies attacks on education,
believes that the cases are orchestrated. As an example, she cites a
group called "Mães do Agro" (mothers of agribusiness) that put
pressure on authorities to ban textbooks on climate change, alleging
they "discriminate" against agribusiness.
"Parents, teachers and principals are being used to report books and
teaching practices," said Frossard, a coordinator at the National
Campaign for the Right to Education.
Tenório's Brazilian publisher had to file a lawsuit to ensure the
book's return to schools - and in an ironic twist, publicity around
the ban propelled the title back on to the bestseller lists.
"Occasionally, however, the principal's video is reposted by someone
else … They keep trying to [ban it again]," he said.
The writer believes that, due to the backlash, O Avesso da Pele will
not be censored again, at least at an institutional level.
"But a teacher might be afraid to bring any controversy into the
classroom and decide against using it. Pressuring teachers is a form
of violence, and it can often happen without the public finding out,"
he warned.
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