Booker winner slams censorship before China trip

By James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright says censorship never works, while voicing her conviction ahead of a first visit to China that words ultimately prevail over powers seeking to curb the freedom of expression.

Censorship in China has come under greater scrutiny ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August, and some global artists have clashed with the Chinese government over its bleak rights record.

"Words are liquid, they get everywhere. Emily Dickinson has a line that says you cannot fold a flood and put it in a drawer," Enright told Reuters in Hong Kong, referring to the reclusive 19th century American poet.

Enright, a Dubliner known for her works exploring the darker elements of the human condition, won the prestigious 2007 Man Booker prize for her novel "The Gathering".

She was in Hong Kong for the Man International Literary Festival and plans to fly to Shanghai afterwards.

When asked to comment on China's curbs on the freedom of expression, from banning books to jailing writers, Enright spoke broadly of the prevailing power of literature in overcoming the debilitating effects of censorship on society.

"There was no way that when I was growing up that the tide of Irish writing was going to be stopped by something even as powerful as the Catholic Church," she told Reuters, citing the uncompromising writing of Edna O'Brien and John McGahern.

"By conviction I'm against censorship in general and also in a pragmatic kind of way I think it doesn't work," she added.