Kazuo Ishiguro is right about cancel culture

When the Kuwaiti authorities banned nearly 1,000 books from the Kuwait International Literature festival including Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the move was rightly met with outrage from the Western literary community. The press was full of talk about the perils of artistic censorship. That was twelve years ago, but this grand-standing was on display again last year during the Abu Dhabi literature festival. Stephen Fry and Noam Chomsky signed a letter to the United Arab Emirates government, castigating them for ‘promoting a platform for freedom of expression, while keeping behind bars Emirati citizens and residents who shared their own views and opinions.’

What would have struck us as dystopian a decade ago now seems not that far removed from the cultural climate we find ourselves in today. Step forward Nobel prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who has spoken out about the ‘climate of fear’ that is causing young writers to self-censor. As online culture tightens its grip on the stories that a writer is allowed to tell, it’s hard not to feel that we are heading in an increasingly hostile direction.