BAN ON NOVELIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23687, 20 December 1938, Page 8

BAN ON NOVELIST

MISS BENTLEY'S BOOK "SLEEP IN PEACE" "PROUD" OF GERMAN ACTION <From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 17. Miss Phyllis • Bentley, the Halifax novelist, has heard from a London agent and a German publishing firm that her book, "Sleep in Peace," has been banned in Germany. Arrangements had been made with the German firm to produce a German translation of the novel, and a contract had been signed. "Sleep in Peace" has been published in America and the Scandinavian countries. Her book, "Inheritance," was also published in Germany. No reason for the ban has been given but Miss Bentley assumes that the liberal tone of the novel has something to do with it. References to the outbreak of the Great War and to the conduct of the war are made in the book. In the last chapters there are pertinent references to the Hitler regime. The writer stipulated when publication in Germany was suggested that nothing in the book should be "doctored." Though the ban will mean a monetary loss to her, she says she feels it quite an honour to be banned in Germany. In an interview in Sheffield. Miss Bentley said: " I am proud that it has been banned by the present German Government. I have no quarrel with the German people. The book deals chiefly with my generation from 1890 to the present date, including the war. There is a chapter in it about what we felt about the Germans during the war, the sinking of the Lusitania, and about gas. It is not propaganda, but deals fully with things as they were then. The real trouble seems the last chapter, which is about 1935 The heroine feels she would welcome any change in the social system which would bring greater economic and political justice to everyone. She would not accept any system which involved a dictatorship of the Right or Left."