Celebrate Banned Books Week 2011
Saturday started Banned Books Week, a time to celebrate the First Amendment and our freedom to read. Throughout history, people have recognized the transformative power of literature; governments, religious institutions, and even school districts have sought to contain that power by banning controversial books—in some cases even ordering the destruction of books.
Yet banning a book often has the opposite effect: making a book all the more sought after. This happens for two reasons. First, many banned books are truly exceptional works of literature and have become part of the literary canon. They are perennial favorites in consistent demand from collectors. Meanwhile, some modern books—such as James Joyce’s Ulysses (burned in the US, England, Canada, and Ireland)—were actually destroyed, limiting the number of first editions and printings.
Here’s a look at some of the most frequently challenged books in the United States, and sometimes even around the world:
- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was challenged for language and sexual references. It remains a staple of high-school and college classrooms around the country.
- The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, has long been a favorite target for censorship. In 1960, a teacher was even fired for assigning the book. The novel was most recently challenged in 2009 in Missouri.
- The publication of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath drew international attention. The book was burned by a library in Illinois and banned in Canada. Eleven Turkish booksellers faced a military tribunal for publishing, possessing, and selling the book. Of Mice and Men was equally controversial.
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was denounced as a “filthy, trashy novel.” Despite the novel’s having won a Pulitzer Prize, To Kill a Mockingbird continues to be challenged almost yearly.
- George Orwell also earned attention for both 1984 and Animal Farm. The latter was even suppressed from appearing at the 1977 Russian International Book Fair.
- Burned in Nazi bonfires in Germany, The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway was also banned in Ireland and multiple US cities. A Farewell to Arms received similar response, and For Whom the Bell Tolls was deemed “unmailable” by the US Post Office.
Add comment September 26th, 2011
