This sealed copy of 1984 makes censorship impossible to ignore
By James Herring on Thursday, October 9, 2025
In a bold visual metaphor for censorship, the Dawit Isaak Library in Sweden and BBDO Nordics have transformed George Orwell’s 1984 into the world’s first double-bound book – completely unreadable and impossible to ignore.
Launched during Banned Books Week 2025, the edition contains every word of Orwell’s text but is sealed shut on both ends.
It can’t be opened. It can’t be read. It exists to provoke a reaction and start a conversation.
Based in Malmö, Sweden, the Dawit Isaak Library is the world’s first library dedicated entirely to freedom of speech.
It is named after Dawit Isaak, a Swedish-Eritrean journalist who has been imprisoned without trial since 2001.
“We crafted the book to induce anxiety and anger first, followed by action,” said BBDO Nordics copywriter Karan Nair. The book is the centerpiece of The Bound Books Project, an initiative that uses design as protest, spotlighting the alarming rise in book censorship globally.
The sealed 1984 has already reached influential readers, including Stephen King and Nobel laureate Herta Müller. One copy will circulate through over 1,000 libraries and bookstores in Sweden, each invited to use it as a conversation starter on the freedom to read.
“When a book is banned, it becomes a closed world,” said Jasmina Dizdarevic Cordero of the Dawit Isaak Library. With this edition, that world is sealed shut—by design.
