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On Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs del Mal
The judges argued that these pieces would “necessarily lead to the excitement of the senses by a crude realism offensive to public decency.” In other words, they were too… More
My Father’s Violin
...lying in the back of another old Chevy—a ‘50 model—I watched passing headlights pinwheel over the torn headliner, and thought of my father home in Pennsylvania, dreaming unimaginable dreams… More
Siddharta’s Loop
I been goin’ to the Jersey shore since I was a kid and ain’t never seen a condom or syringe wash upon the sand. More
PEN Visits South Africa
I just returned from a fabulous trip to South Africa, where I traveled on behalf of PEN American Center with the poet Cathy Park Hong as part of our… More
Final Words: Book Banning Is Not Dead
In April of 2011, a visit with a close friend sparked the same question that was asked each time we were together: What are you working on now? I… More
China’s Nobels
PEN American Center's Larry Siems and translator Jeffrey Yang on Liu Xiaobo, Mo Yan, and Liu Xia. More
On Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried has been challenged because of profanity three times. At high schools in Pennsylvania (retained), Mississippi (banned), and Illinois (retained); in 2001, 2003, and 2007, respectively;… More
On William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
While ideological book banning is infuriating, banning out of ignorance and vague religiosity are, to me, even more galling. William Faulkner’s classic, As I Lay Dying, has been banned… More
On Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
Throughout the novel, Vonnegut punctuates each horror with the words, “And so it goes.” Nothing protects the Billy Pilgrims of the world from brutality. Innocence is no protection. More
Robie Harris On the Banning of Her Books
How can we hold back writing about powerful feelings, or not include certain information children crave and have the right to know, simply because we are afraid? More
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