BANNED: ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post’
The Cape Henlopen, DE, school board took emily m. danforth's critically acclaimed novel 'The Miseducation of Cameron Post' off the summer reading list for containing a word that rhymes… More
A Banned Books Wrap Up
This September, PEN American Center reached out to writers, editors, literary illuminati, and PEN staff to write about the banned books that matter to them most. Below you’ll find… More
On Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
The problem of Emma is the problem of desire. Her only métier is desire, and its top percent, love. Emma lusts for gratification through commodity and body and makes… More
On Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”
I saw, for the first time, what it really means to be a poet—to have the habit of mind where the universe reveals itself through linguistic forms the way,… More
On Judy Blume’s Forever
I checked out Forever from my local library, where it sat serenely in Teen Fiction for all the world to see. I read it on a gray morning, and… More
On Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago
Even under Stalin’s successor Khrushchev there was still no realistic hope of publishing the entire book. So in 1957 Pasternak finally allowed a manuscript (including the poems, published as… More
On Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
I live in a world that resounds with stories of young girls being raped, experiencing first love, where court systems rule against poor blacks and further commit violence against… More
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
Banned Books Month is Coming!
September is all about banned books here at PEN American. We reached out to writers, editors, literary illuminati, and PEN staff to write about the banned books that matter… 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
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
