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
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
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