Forbidden Flavors of the Month Taboos
On the “What’s Taboo?” PEN panel with Salwa Al Neimi, Zsofia Ban, Nicole Brossard, Rakesh Satyal, and Victoria Redel.
There are social, political, religious, literary, and publishing taboos, Western and Eastern taboos, Taboos that it is taboo to write about and acknowledge, even in PEN, and but for some startlingly illuminating contributions by Nicole Brossard and Salwa Al Neimi, the PEN World Voices panel seemed fixated mainly with the Forbidden Flavor of the Month taboo, that is, Taboos Permissible and Fashionable, and Long Untaboo Western Taboos: the taboo against writing about homosexuality, male or female, or about Sexual Perversity in Saudi Arabia. And for this reason, something was lost.
But first,... |
