Publishing, the Rules of the Trade
Interdit de séjour
Tony Duvert, Éditions de Minuit, original edition, 1969, Coll. Bfm - Limoges
A reputed author published by Editions de Minuit, Tony Duvert militated in favour of children’s right to sexuality and homosexuality, which he declares to be repressed by policy in favour of families and ‘adult power’ which he refers to as ‘heterocracy’. In 1969, Interdit de séjour, a novel whose content is explicitly homosexual is declared ‘harmful’ by the Supervisory Committee and banned from sale to minors. For this author, Jérôme Lindon organised a system of sales by subscription which limited diffusion, which is exactly what the 1949 law sought to impose. The historian Anne Simonin considered that with Tony Duvert’s subversive book, Minuit was yet again ‘fighting for freedom of expression, by shifting from political grounds (Algerian War) to morality’.