On July 17, 2023, the book Far Too Small was banned from sale to teenagers by the Ministry of the Interior. The authorities relied on a 1949 law which prohibits publications “of a pornographic nature” intended for young people. Manu Causse, its author, judges that the authorities have taken a wrong turn with this decision by censoring a book which does not promote but, on the contrary, criticizes the culture of rape and gives keys to adolescents to understand that sexuality is not the “soft sado masochism” of 50 shades of Grey, the dirty drawings of manga or the explicit pornography widely distributed on the Internet.
LE FIGARO. – What do you think about the ministerial ban on your book Far Too Small?
Manu CAUSSE. – I did not expect such a controversy. Admittedly, there are very explicit lines about sex in Way Too Small, with pastiches of 1980s porn like I could read when I was 15. But the ministerial decree remains very surprising. He hits the opening scenes of the book, which contain passages that may evoke an apology for rape culture. Whereas precisely, we worked on them a lot with the editors of Thierry Magnier, so that they do not take this direction, quite the contrary. When the protagonist Grégoire expresses his childhood fantasies, another character steps in to challenge these ideas. The censorship of my book is therefore as brutal as it is contradictory. Especially when you see that dark romance novels, with scenes of violence or rape, or manga with very explicit drawings, are often available from the age of 10. I don’t understand where the logic lies in this prohibition.
Are you planning to challenge the ban against Way Too Small?
Thierry Magnier -the publisher of Bien trop petit-, must contact the Ministry of Culture this week to discuss the ministerial decree. For us, the debate is still open. There would be a possibility of challenging this order in court, this has been mentioned, but for the moment, the time is for reflection.
Do you think the 1949 law, on which the ministry relied to make its decision, too restrictive towards children’s literature?
It is very interesting to analyze this law and understand how it protects young people. There has always been this anxiety about the transition to adulthood, as well as a form of apprehension of one’s own body and that of others. For a teenager, this is a difficult time. The work of children’s literature is also to open the floor on these subjects. If a law prevents us from mentioning sex scenes in our books, intended to break taboos on issues related to sexuality, our work becomes very complicated. From a legal point of view, young people must of course be protected from pornographic content, which is widely proliferating on the Internet. But when talking about sexuality in children’s literature, the objective is to prepare the young person or to repair his imagination. The purpose of the game is not to simply describe sexuality. But to question it, in order to break certain norms that we adults have been able to assimilate in the past. When a character expresses a shocking opinion or illegal thought in a book, should the book be banned? With this law, what exactly are young people being protected from? Sexuality? Shouldn’t we talk about it?
How do you write a novel about sexuality when addressing teenagers?
By writing Far Too Small, my primary objective was to reconnect with this boiling and misinformed imagination that I experienced as a teenager. In this book, I speak to the lost kid that I was at 12, who found himself in passages from Little Big Man by Thomas Berger. In general, this kind of “fantasy machine” that one experiences when young is often killed. This explosive cocktail was particularly silenced in my house by parents who were not very talkative on the subject of sexuality. I didn’t know how to become a man while being sensitive and open-minded. Starting from this premise to write my book, I asked myself: what do I want to pass on to my sons? What could my father have taught me about male sexuality?
To raise awareness about sexuality, is it necessary to be explicit? What limits do you impose on yourself?
The goal is not to put sex scenes everywhere. But Far Too Small, is part of a collection, L’Ardeur, which works specifically on these subjects. With a group of young authors and authors, we had already written a collection entitled 16 shades of first times. We were appalled that one of the gateways for teenagers to sexuality could be the “soft sado-masochism” of 50 shades of Grey. The objective was to create a kind of “antidote” to this widely diffused vision of sex, by embellishing our texts with touches of humor. In my writing work on Far Too Small, I felt that this exercise can be difficult, that we can go too far in the subject. That’s why I used metaphors. Or I deliberately wrote very awkwardly, with lots of repetition, to bring the story back into the perspective of a teenager. The editors helped me in this work.
Does this decision alarm stakeholders in the youth sector?
I received a lot of support from all of children’s literature and also from many Internet users. And I am happy to see that this decision by the Ministry of the Interior opens the debate. The writer Nicolas Mathieu – Prix Goncourt 2018 – even created the hashtag “When I was 15” on Instagram. Many people use it to share the apprehensions they felt when they were 15. In general, we do not often talk about children’s literature. Young people today face a complicated world. I meet a lot of teenagers or young adults in fairs and in classes, and I see great dismay. We really must avoid demoralizing the youth. And we must be careful not to spread outdated or even erroneous sexuality patterns to adolescents. In the end, the censorship of Far Too Small is positive, because it allows us to question ourselves collectively.
