Arnon Grunberg

On censorship

The unimportant spy

When I started writing articles for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad (or the Belgian magazine Humo for that matter) I never thought that these articles would travel far. A naive thought maybe -- but also a thought that prevented me from lots of self-censorship.
Now with a site I like this, I’m aware that anyone in Vietnam, Poland, Lebanon or Iran has in theory the possibility to check my whereabouts. (If people assume that my whereabouts given on this site are correct.)
Whenever this comes to my mind I realize that people are either too lazy to check or are not willing to believe most of the things I keep telling them.
In other words: thank God I’m a very unimportant spy. Even so unimportant that I’m not sure whom am I spying for.