ABSTRACT
During the latter part of the 1950s and into the 1960s, the governments of the Arab world kept a tight rein on the dissemination of information and began to acquire the necessary skills in the use and abuse of the broadcasting media for propaganda purposes. The new political and societal alignments that resulted from the various revolutionary processes were clearly a ready and legitimate topic for the creativity of litterateurs. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed an enormous growth in literary production and in critical discussion of it in the latter context there was much debate on the role of the writer in the new society, much of itunder the banner of “commitment”. The very existence of censorship—let alone discussion of its nature and modus operandi or critical comment on its implementation and effects—is a taboo topic in the Arab world. In a word, the existence of censorship is censored.
