'Don Quixote' helps booksellers in free speech battle

When Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote in the 17th century, he couldn’t have imagined that the novel would be used as a weapon in a modern battle over freedom of speech in Spain.

In defiance of a court order banning a book that investigates drug trafficking in Spain, the Madrid Booksellers’ Guild has launched an online tool that automatically pulls some 80,000 words from the classic novel to piece together the contents of the banned work.

“We feel that this prohibition of a book, which is something that hasn’t happened in Spain for more than 30 years, is an attack on our freedoms,” Fernando Valverde of the Booksellers’ Guild told The Associated Press.