About 35 silent demonstrators including a Dunedin City Councillor took over part of the University of Otago's Link yesterday, protesting last week's banning of New Zealand book Into the River.
Dunedin-based writer and editor Dr Emma Neale organised the Dunedin protest, one of several held throughout New Zealand and overseas.
•Editorial: Beware the banning of books
The Film and Literature Board of Review last week issued an interim ban of the book, written by Ted Dawe, which won top prize in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards in 2013.
The ban came after conservative group Family First complained about the contents of the book, citing the number of times certain offensive words were used. Family First later said it had not intended for the book to be banned.
Dunedin City Councillor Aaron Hawkins read one of Mr Dawe's earlier books at the protest yesterday.
''I'm trying to find the clues in his earlier work that would lead him to such racy material later in his career, so much so that it would have to be banned ... I haven't found any yet.''
Cr Hawkins said he came in ''an act of solidarity with the author''.
''If our young people can't read realistic depictions of what life is like in their country, then I think that's a really sad day; that awkward sex and some foul language would be enough to send our moral crusaders off.''
Another reader was Barbara Larson, a former employee of the company that published Mr Dawe's first book. She was ''astonished and dismayed'' at the book being banned.
''I really don't think that one group should be able to have this amount of say in what libraries and book shops and young people can read,'' she said.
''I think [Family First has] tried their best to extract things out of context, which harms the book. The book has strong emotional power, and there are many issues raised.
"And to count the number of f-words in the book seems, to me, just nonsensical.''
