Search


Basic |  Guided |  Advanced |  Tips


    Full Details


Pasquino Society and Censorship in South Africa

Walter Whall Battiss  (1906-1982)
Doreen Levin


Pages: various
Size: various
Language: English


Place publication: Pretoria, RSA
Publisher: Various

Additional notes:
Battiss's file on the subject.

1. Government Gazette of the Report of the interdepartmental Committee of Inquiry into the application of the Publications and Entertainment Acts, 1963, dated 22 December 1972.

2. Invitation. Censorship in South Africa. 29/2/1972, 8pm. Der Vorstand des Alt-DASUP. Text in German. Battiss was the third speaker.

3. Manifesto of the Basic Rights of Creative Man. Cursive text by Battiss where he list those rights and then defines Creative Man as Writers, Musicians, Artists and Actors.

4. A Memorandum from Professor Walter Battiss to the Secretary for the Interior, Pretoria. A folded page with calligraphy by Battiss, signed and dated 23 Jan 73 which was apparently never delivered, in which he states I make a personal plea to the Minister to Reconsider Censorship and to encourage rather than destroy Writers, Musicians and Artists. This is the original with amendments so he may have re written it for delivery.

5. Memorandum from the South African Council of Artists to Secretary for the Interior, Pretoria dated 18/1/73. This is the original in Battiss's calligraphic script but attached is the postal receipt to the Secretary for the Interior dated 19/1/73 so it must have been photocopied or re-written. It ends: This memorandum approved of by Cecil Skotnes - Joint President and signed by Walter Battiss - Joint President. [Two folded sheets with text on the cover and three pages.]

6. A three-page draft letter to Doreen Levin of the Sunday times discussing the Publications Control Board. This is written on the back of a seven-page (plus cover) typed copy of Poems by Sydney Sepamla. His poetry is collected in several volumes including The Soweto I Love (1977), which was banned by the apartheid government, and these may be those poems. [Research needed]

7. Letters to Doreen Levin from Robin Denniston (MD of Hodder and Stoughton), 1971; from Bernard Malamud, 1972 and from John M. Allegro, 1971. One letter from Nadine Gordimer, 1973 to The Secretary of the Interior.

8. Copyof the Memorandum Pretoria Pasquino Society to Secretary for the Interior dated 17/1/1973 which was signed by Michael Macnamara and Walter Battiss.

9. Letter from Michael Scammell (Director of Writers and Scholars International, London), dated 15/2/73 to Battiss.

10. Letter from Ridley ( ) to Battiss, dated 15/8/81.

11. Single page, Four-item statement on censorship by Battiss.

12. Draft of four articles for the Sunday Times by Doreen Levin dated 25&26/1/73 headed: Protests; Censorship; Gordimer protest and Pretorius.

13. The Grey Ones, Essays on Censorship published by the Ravan Press in 1974 and edited by J. S. Paton (see details of essays).

14. Several topical newspaper clippings on the subject dated 1972 and 1973.



Ref: GB/30289

Articles

Apartheid and Censorship
 Nadine Gordimer (essay by)
   p2

Censorship and the University
 Jonathan Paton (essay by)
   p7

The Beginning of a Revolt
 A. J. Coetzee (essay by)
   p10

In Defence of Smiler Rosebud
 Walter Saunders (essay by)
   p12

Extracts from the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Publications and Entertainments Amendment Bill
   p17







© Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts (JGCBA). All rights reserved.