Staff Pick
Completed two days before he was murdered in the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression is an essay commentary on free speech, racism, and intellectual hypocrisy from French cartoonist, journalist, and editor-in-chief Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier). Emphatic, impassioned, and resolute, Open Letter sharply criticizes those that capitalize (and profit) upon the idea of Islamophobia (a word that Charb deftly deconstructs in all of its nonsensicalness), as well as those that purport to decry racism while duplicitously exploiting its very real and pernicious effects.
Open Letter, written to those least likely to read (let alone heed) its words, addresses blasphemy, charges of provocation and intolerance, as well as the reactionary response garnered by satirical cartoons and the like. Charb's ardent defense of free speech and free expression (in all its myriad forms) is a clarion call for its vigorous and active protection. With wit, erudition, and ample, tenable logic, Charb's Open Letter is a brief, but important condemnation of the ongoing (and ever-increasing) threat to free, open, and unfettered expression. Recommended By Jeremy G., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
An impassioned defense of the freedom of speech, from St phane Charbonnier, a journalist murdered for his convictions. On January 7, 2015, two gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. They took the lives of twelve men and women, but they called for one man by name: "Charb."
Known by his pen name, St phane Charbonnier was editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo, an outspoken critic of religious fundamentalism, and a renowned political cartoonist in his own right. In the past, he had received death threats and had even earned a place on Al Qaeda's Most Wanted List. On January 7 it seemed that Charb's enemies had finally succeeded in silencing him. But in a twist of fate befitting Charb's defiant nature, it was soon revealed that he had finished a book just two days before his murder on the very issues at the heart of the attacks: blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the necessary courage of satirists.
Here, published for the first time in English, is Charb's final work. A searing criticism of hypocrisy and racism, and a rousing, eloquent defense of free speech, Open Letter shows Charb's words to be as powerful and provocative as his art. This is an essential book about race, religion, the voice of ethnic minorities and majorities in a pluralistic society, and above all, the right to free expression and the surprising challenges being leveled at it in our fraught and dangerous time.