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cover art for Propaganda: Bösche ‘Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin’ (1983)

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Propaganda: Bösche ‘Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin’ (1983)

Season 8, Ep. 8

Why did a children’s picture book provoke new form of censorship in Britain?

 

  • Danish attitudes to children produced books that upset other European cultures.
  • Before Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin was published in 1983, a member of parliament called Geoffrey Dickens called bookshops to boycott it.
  • In 1988, a co-operative in Cork city called the Quay Co-Cop ran a bookshop that stocked what they said was the ‘most comprehensive and up-to-date selection of lesbian and gay titles in Ireland’.

 

Queer Ephemera:

https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/jenny-lives-with-eric-and-martin-a-special/id1488294070?i=1000464529828

 

A Different Country (RTÉ, 11 June 2021) https://www.rte.ie/player/movie/a-different-country/207293480017

 

Pages from the book here:

https://www.gayinthe80s.com/2012/06/1983-book-jenny-lives-with-eric-and-martin/

 

https://corklgbtarchive.com/

 

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