Birth, marriage and death–these are key staging posts. And that’s one reason why this issue looks at how taboos around these subjects have a critical impact on our world.
Why we find it impossible to talk about birth, death and marriage
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CATEGORY: Volume 47.04 Winter 2018
Birth, marriage and death
The winter 2018 Index on Censorship magazine looks at why different societies stop people discussing the most significant events in life. In China, as Karoline Kan reports, women were forced for many years to have just one child and now they are being pushed to have two, but it is not something to talk about. In South Korea Steven Borowiec finds men have taken to social media to condemn a new film adaptation of a novel about motherhood. Irene Caselli describes the consequences in Latin America of preventing discussion about contraception and sexually transmitted infections. Joan McFadden digs into attitudes to gay marriage in the Hebrides, where she grew up, and interviews the Presbyterian minister who demonstrated against Lewis Pride. We have an original play from Syrian dramatist Liwaa Yazji about fear and violent death. While flash fiction writer Neema Komba imagines a Tanzanian bride challenging the marriage committee over her wedding cake. Finally Nobel-prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich tells us that she is sanguine about the mortal dangers of chronicling and criticising post-Soviet Russia.
Contents: Birth, marriage and death
The winter 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at why different societies stop people discussing the most significant events in life: birth, marriage and death
Podcast: Talking birth, marriage and death taboos
With author Jieun Baek, Sharon Thompson, senior lecturer at Cardiff Law School, Times columnist Edward Lucas and journalist Irene Caselli