Cold War Dress Code: Remembering Inna Lisnyanskaya
Paradoxically, the Metropole affair both silenced Lisnyanskaya as a poet in the USSR and liberated her from the restrictions imposed by publishing (self-censorship being an obligatory tool in the… More
Ban, Restriction, Whatever!: On Ted Dawe’s Into the River
Long time children's and young adult librarian, judge for children's book awards, Trustee of the Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand, and literary agent Frances Plumpton discusses… More
Gutted: How Kathy Acker’s “Blood and Guts in High School” Saved My Life
This book, this author, this girl body said: Make art. A girl is born and we make a story of her. Daughter. Lover. Wife. Mother. In Kathy Acker’s… More
Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” Trilogy and the Preemptive Censorship of Writers of Color
What if the preemptive banning of marginalized writers is just as much a cause of trauma as racist story-telling by powerful white writers? More
PEN Podcast: Philip Fried Reads from the New American Poetry Anthology
The New American Poetry Anthology 1945 was banned in Colorado because of poems like Gergory Corso's "Marriage." In honor of Banned Books Week, the PEN podcast features Philip Fried… More
Sacrifice and Self-Censorship before Russia’s “Gay Propaganda” Law
For those of us outside Russia, it’s hard to convey the kind of risk Wilke and her publisher were contemplating. The Putin presidency has committed serious violence—only some of… More
Free Expression Daily Digest: Mon., September 28
Israel suspends officer over AFP journalists' assault, Mark Zuckerberg announces project to connect refugee camps, and Serbian journalists are harassed by police. More
Rachel Eliza Griffiths Reads The Bluest Eye
Rachel Eliza Griffiths reads and excerpt from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. More
Eyes, Exile, and Opportunity: Banning Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
"The capital and complex imagination of black people has always been banned, unless it is supportive in the service of the privileged body’s desire to view itself as superior." More
Banned Books Week Gets a Digital Makeover
Last year the sponsors behind Banned Books Week began giving the three-decades-old promotion a makeover for the digital age. More