Open Letter

Mehr zum Buch

<b>An impassioned defense of the freedom of speech, from Stéphane Charbonnier, a journalist murdered for his convictions</b> On January 7, 2015, two gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper <i>Charlie Hebdo.</i> They took the lives of twelve men and women, but they called for one man by name: "Charb." Known by his pen name, Stéphane Charbonnier was editor in chief of <i>Charlie Hebdo,</i> 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, <i>Open Letter</i> 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.