Hollywood comes calling for 'banned book' Into the River
A Hollywood movie maker, an audio book producer and publishers seeking Dutch and French translation rights are the silver lining in Ted Dawe's censorship nightmare.
The Auckland author, whose young adult novel Into the River is currently banned from sale or loan because of complaints by Christian lobby Family First, says controversy about the book "has been hugely positive".
"It is now a famous book. It's in Time magazine. There is a lot of curiosity . . . I'm only guessing, but I think it's going to make a lot of money for me."
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Dawe initially self-published 3000 copies of the novel that won top prize at the 2013 NZ Post Children's Book Awards and was picked up for wider distribution by Penguin Random House. He said since news of the interim ban broke, he had been inundated with messages of support – and commercial offers.
"I've had an approach from a Hollywood film company, from two people wanting the translation rights, from an audio books company . . . "
Dawe said the offers were at an early stage – "I'd not heard of the Hollywood person" – but the response was encouraging.
"When I won that award, I thought that was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I felt it was marvellous recognition of what I'd strived for, for a long time, and against the odds, I'd cracked it with a self-published book in a field against all these professionally produced things.
"But that was so thoroughly poisoned by Family First's campaign, that it was spoiled. And I feel, somehow, this is payback, because they took away my moment of glory."
Into the River was the subject of a September 3 interim restriction order imposed by Don Mathieson, president of the Film and Literature Board of Review. Individuals or companies who breach the order face fines of $3000 and $10,000 respectively. The order is in place until a full meeting of the Board or Review, scheduled for October 2.