Open Letter, Charb
Open Letter, Charb
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.49

Open Letter
On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression

Author: Charb, Adam Gopnik

Narrator: Dean Olsher

Unabridged: 1 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/05/2016


Synopsis

An impassioned defense of the freedom of speech, from Stéphane Charbonnier, a journalist murdered for his convictions.

On January 7, 2015, two gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. They took the lives of twelve men and women, but they called for one man by name: "Charb."

Known by his pen name, Stèphane Charbonnier was editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo, an outspoken critic of religious fundamentalism, and a renowned political cartoonist in his own right. In the past, he had received death threats and had even earned a place on Al Qaeda's Most Wanted List. On January 7 it seemed that Charb's enemies had finally succeeded in silencing him. But in a twist of fate befitting Charb's defiant nature, it was soon revealed that he had finished a book just two days before his murder on the very issues at the heart of the attacks: blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the necessary courage of satirists.

Here, published for the first time in English, is Charb's final work. A searing criticism of hypocrisy and racism, and a rousing, eloquent defense of free speech, Open Letter shows Charb's words to be as powerful and provocative as his art. This is an essential book about race, religion, the voice of ethnic minorities and majorities in a pluralistic society, and above all, the right to free expression and the surprising challenges being leveled at it in our fraught and dangerous time.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Manny on January 16, 2016

This little book - as the title says, really just a long letter - is the last thing Charb wrote before he and several of his colleagues at Charlie Hebdo were murdered by Saïd and Chérif Kouachi on Jan 7, 2015. Note to other ardent jihadists: if the Kouachi brothers hadn't committed this despicable c......more

Goodreads review by Elham on April 10, 2016

I have a six-year-old nephew who’s a little master of inversing concepts or orders: When his teacher calls him “you’re doing this and that wrong and I have to fly away some of your stars” he comes and unsticks those starts from his board and gives them to his sister (who’s a year smaller) saying tha......more

Goodreads review by Jon on February 14, 2024

We all need to take a step back from the abyss and try to understand each other. While I do not agree with everything said in this book I do think that we need to hear each other out...it is the only way to survive in a world where violence is too often the first (and only) solution considered. If w......more