BURNING ISSUE

To raise awareness about proliferating book banning and censorship in American schools, as well as to raise money to support PEN America’s opposition, Margaret Atwood, Penguin Random House and creative agency Rethink recently joined forces to make a unique limited edition of one, a fireproof edition of Atwood’s regularly banned The Handmaid’s Tale. Dubbed The Unburnable

Book, the edition was designed by Noma Bar, made from fireproof materials by print-and-bindery master craftsman Jeremy Martin and produced in Toronto by graphic arts specialty and bookbinding atelier

The Gas Company Inc. The finished volume was auctioned in June by Sotheby’s, raising $130,000 for PEN America’s anti-censorship work. That organisation recorded that in the US between 1 July 2021 and 31 March this year there were 1,586 known instances of individual books being banned in public schools, affecting 1,145 unique book titles.

Sotheby’s described the book as: ‘8vo. Printed on black-and-whitecoated aluminum Cinefoils, used in film production to wrap hot lights, which are stable to 660°C/1,220°F, textblock hand-sewn with nickel wire, often used in electrical components, which is stable to 1,400°C/2,600°F, head and tail bands are woven stainless steel, used in aerospace manufacturing, which are stable up to 1,530°C/2,790°F. Boards 3mm phenolic sheets, used in electronics manufacturing, which are stable to 540°F/282°C, opaque white and CMYK printing produced on an OKI five-colour digital press, with inks stable to 1200°C/2200°F.’

The auction house noted that, ‘All materials were tested by fire during manufacturing to validate these specifications.’

And as we all know, thanks to Ray Bradbury, a regular book would be aflame by the time it passed 451ºF.

Find out more at https://writ.rs/ unburnt