Travis Hale


Again, the riddle:

An oppressive African political regime (or its supporters) blew up a newspaper's offices after the paper printed a serialized version of book that is often read by children and revolves around non-human characters. The only change was to put horn-rimmed glasses on an accompanying illustration of a key character, a pig with an historical name. Name the book and name the country.

The Answer:

George Orwell's Animal Farm; Zimbabwe. "An opposition newspaper in Zimbabwe took the opportunity to reprint Animal Farm in serial form. It did so without comment, except that one of the accompanying illustrations showed Napoleon the dictator wearing the trademark black horn-rimmed spectacles of Zimbabwe's own leader. The offices of the newspaper were soon afterwards blown up by a weapons-grade bomb." Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/christopher-hitchens-re-reads-animal-farm