Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth century literature. In this essay, Aubrey discusses the issue of press censorship in wartime, from Japan in World War II to today's United States.

A recurring theme in A Boy Called H is the extent to which the Japanese newspapers during wartime did not report the truth. H gets frustrated with what he reads about the war because he senses, as does his father, that they are not getting the whole story. When the first air raids are made on Kobe, the newspaper headlines read, "The Neighborhood Association Spirit Beats the Raiders." This puzzles H because he knows that, in fact, the air raid had taken the Neighborhood Association by surprise and that, in practice, the hazards of putting out fires were nothing like the smooth drills they had been regularly practicing. Also...