On Translating Jean-Paul de Dadelsen
It was because I’d read and translated Kaddour’s poem that, when I saw a collection of Dadelsen’s work on a bookshop’s tiny poetry shelf, I picked it up, leafed… More
Sick and Tired of Dennis Rodman
I am tired of his body. I am tired of his body parts—those that are pierced, and those (few) that are not (yet) pierced. I am tired of his… More
Tyranny of Parents: Banning Shel Silverstein
Warning: What you are about to read contains profanity, vile, morbid, and anti-parent material, suggestive illustrations, subliminal messages that glorify Satan, suicide, cannibalism, disrespect for truth and legitimate authority,… More
Song of Songs
Why is Song of Songs singled out as the problem child? Song of Songs, the Bible's great love poem, is the zenith of the Bible's contemporary social incomprehensibility because… More
The Naked Lunch: Disguised Espionage
In a sense, the book was predestined to cause a censorial response, programmed, as it was, to infiltrate and disrupt. It seems likely that Burroughs, along with his editors… More
Revenge for My Protest?
Forty-five minutes before departure the microphone crackled, the decision on my case was made known, and the woman told me abruptly and without emotion that my entry into the… More
Burning is Banning: On the Qur’an
At this very moment, somebody somewhere in the United States is trying, in some way or other—be it by burning, be it by banning—to censor the Qur’an. At this… More
On Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
It’s a luxury in our country that banning books is by and large an academic argument...[W]hen we have a discussion of “banned” books in this country, what we are… More
Immunization Through Fear: Banning R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps
I assert that the original Goosebumps series and all the subsequent spin-offs are so popular (over 300 million sold, making Stine the second most best-selling children’s author of all-time)… More
Australian Psycho
PEN staffer Jordan DeBor talks about the ban on Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho in Australia, where the book is censored for “graphic violence, sexual content, and its potential… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
