Ersi Sotiropoulos’s fifth novel, Zigzag through the Bitter-Orange Trees, was an enormous success on its publication in 2000 in Greece, becoming the first novel ever to win both the national prize for literature and the foremost book critics’ prize, awarded by Diavozo magazine.
Sotiropoulos’s work—which is made only more unsettling by the natural elegance of her prose—was perhaps never going to be an easy choice for a government ministry; her career has not been without controversy and this is not the first accusation of pornography she’s faced. The choice of Zigzag for the prize was subject to some criticism at the time from within the Ministry of Culture, but this did not keep the novel from outstanding critical success (“the best novel of the decade”) as well as translation into French, German, Spanish, and English.
But recently the novel has come under more vigorous attack. Kostas Plevris, a prominent member of the extreme right-wing political party Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), has filed a lawsuit denouncing the book: specifically, aiming to force the Ministry of Education, which each year donates copies of the national prizewinning books to libraries around the country, to withdraw all donated copies of Zigzag from schools. The courts have just granted an injunction in his favor—which will result in the book’s immediate removal, pending a final judgment—on the grounds that “A simple reading of this book shows that it includes passages that are clearly pornographic and obscene.”
Even that summary sounds too reasonable for the facts of the case. In December 2007, Plevris was given a 14-month suspended sentence for “inciting hatred and racial violence” in his book The Jews: The Whole Truth—his conviction the result a suit that has also, rightfully, been questioned as a possible infringement of free speech. The Jews: The Whole Truth is apparently (I’m relieved to say that it is not available in translation) a 1,400-page work of neo-Nazi thought and Holocaust denial, declaring among other things that Jews “deserve the firing squad” (See a typical summary here.) Plevris has recently written his own account of the trial, called The Struggle for Truth: The Adventures of a Book (“truth,” featured in both his titles, is clearly a central principle—perhaps he doth protest too much) and is now countersuing. The irony of his own subsequent attempts at censorship seems not to have occurred to him.
Plevris, in short, is certainly no critic of standing: quite the opposite. He seems to have found his ideal reader, however, in the judge ruling on this case, Dimitrios Gavalas. Gavalas justifies his ruling against Zigzag by reasoning that children’s literature should be addressed “to the pure souls of children, which Christ, God incarnate, offered as models to adults.” “School books should inspire children with moral purity and love for their religion and nation,” he continues, and then contemplates such questions as:
“Once most young people went to Church, in order to approach the truth, which is not ideology, or any other point of view, but truth, since the only light and life is Our Lord Jesus Christ; today young people end up in reformatories rotting from drug use. Is that progress?”
“Once the wife concerned herself primarily with child-rearing, which today is left to governesses and babysitters. Is that progress?”
“Once with a thousand drachmas you could buy all sorts of things, today with three euros what can you buy?”
Those of us who believe wholly in the importance of literature may be tempted to take Gavalas’s spectacular accusations as a compliment: what faith he must have in the power of literature, after all, to hold a single novel responsible for the downfall of a culture. But unfortunately, the absurdity of this case does not make its consequences any less dangerous. Books are in fact being removed from libraries—and that certainly is not progress. Please join protestors in Greece in an international petition against this injustice.
And we can’t help but add: Why not buy a copy to donate to your favorite library?
—Hilary Plum, with thanks to Karen Emmerich for her translations from the Greek