Responsibility and Flippancy
When a writer pushes a square peg into a round hole is it an act of stupidity and misunderstanding or an act of creativity? In writing we deal constantly with what exists in the spaces in between. How does a writer address the spaces they have created in this rebellious act. These concepts apply particularly perhaps in writing in translation or in writing uncomfortable truths.
2016 sees a quarter of a millennium since Sweden became the first country in the world to write freedom of the press into its constitution. Freedom of the press, one of the four fundamental laws governing the constitution, is based on freedom of expression and speech – a central tenet of most democracies.
The act was passed following the publication in 1759 of a pamphlet Tankar om borgerliga friheten (Thoughts on civil liberty) by Peter Forsskål originally banned by Uppsala University.