Gordimer's response to the novel's unbanning was, "I was indifferent to the opinions of the original censorship committee who neither read nor understood the book properly in the first place, and to those of the committee of literary experts who made this discovery, since both are part of the censorship system." She attributed the unbanning to her international stature and the "serious attention" the book had received abroad. A number of prominent authors and literary organisations had protested the banning, including Iris Murdoch, Heinrich Böll, Paul Theroux, John Fowles, Frank Kermode, The Association of American Publishers and International PEN. Gordimer objected to the unbanning of the book because she felt the government was trying placate her with "special treatment", and said that the same thing would not have happened had she been black. But she did describe the action as "something of a precedent for other writers" because in the book she had published a copy of an actual pamphlet written and distributed by students in the 1976 Soweto uprising, which the authorities had banned. She said that similar "transgressions" in the future would be difficult for the censors to clamp down on.