-
Period: to
A Century of Literary Censorship
-
Ulysses banned for being "obscene"
Deemed immoral upon its initial, serialized, publication, Joyce's iconic tome scandalized censorship boards around the world. At a U.S. trial in 1921 the text was declared obscene and, as a result, Ulysses was effectively banned in the United States. Throughout the 1920s, the United States Postal Service burned copies of the novel. -
PEN International Founded in London
PEN (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists) was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and international co-operation among writers everywhere, and to defend literature and free expression wherever they are threatened. The first PEN Club was founded by Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, with John Galsworthy as its first President. Its first members included Joseph Conrad, Elizabeth Craig, George Bernard Shaw, and H.G. Wells. -
Ireland establishes Committee on Evil Literature
Following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 a Committee on Evil Literature was appointed in 1926. Books could be banned that were considered to be indecent or obscene, as could newspapers whose content relied too much on crime, and works that promoted the "unnatural" prevention of conception or that advocated abortion. Other examples of obscene literature submitted to the committee rranged from photographs of dancers to advertisements for hair removal cream. -
China bans Alice in Wonderland
Was banned in the province of Hunan, China, beginning in 1931 for its portrayal of anthropomorphized animals acting on the same level of complexity as human beings. The censor General Ho Chien believed that attributing human language to animals was an insult to humans. He feared that the book would teach children to regard humans and animals on the same level, which would be "disastrous." -
First PEN President Awarded Nobel Prize
John Galsworthy, PEN’s first president and champion of free expression, receives the Nobel Prize for Literature. Unable to attend the ceremony due to illness, he dies six months later. In a final act of literary philanthropy, Galsworthy leaves his Nobel Prize money to PEN. -
Germany Burns Books. A LOT of books.
On this night, in most university towns in Germany, nationalist students marched in torchlight parades "against the un-German spirit." Sudents threw "un-German" books into the bonfires with great joyous ceremony, band-playing, songs, "fire oaths", and incantations. The students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of "un-German" books. By the end of WWII, Nazi Germany will have destroyed an estimated 100 million books across occupied Europe. -
German PEN Expelled Following PEN American Resolution
British novelist H. G. Wells, who became PEN’s president in 1933, led a campaign against the burning of books by the Nazis. German PEN failed to protest and tried to prevent exiled German writer Ernst Toller from speaking at the conference. Following a motion put forward by Henry Seidal Canby and the PEN American Center, German PEN had its membership withdrawn. ‘If German PEN has been reconstructed in accordance with nationalistic ideas,’ a statement from PEN read, ‘it must be expelled.’ -
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck published
A brief but powerful piece of depression-era fiction, Of Mice and Men is about friendship, lonliness, the comfort of shared dreams, and the cruelty of a world in which they can never be realized. The novella has been banned from various US public and school libraries or curricula for allegedly "promoting euthanasia", "condoning racial slurs", being "anti-business", containing profanity, and generally containing "vulgar" and "offensive language". -
The Destruction of Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra Catalan Library by Franco's Troops
In 1939, shortly after the surrendering of Barcelona, Franco's troops burned the entire library of Pompeu Fabra, the main author of the normative reform of contemporary Catalan language, while shouting "¡Abajo la inteligencia!" (Down with intelligentsia!). -
PEN becomes part of the United Nations
PEN looked very different at the end of World War Two. The original concept behind its creation as a club welcoming writers regardless of race, religion or creed had been fractured by reality. New groups of writers in exile had also been established in London and New York during the war.In 1949, following the passage of a resolution introduced by the PEN American Centre, PEN acquired consultative status at the United Nations as ‘representative of the writers of the world’. -
Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four Published
Undoubtedly one of the 20th century's most influential pieces of literature, the prescience of which becomes more evident with each passing year, Orwell's tale of a dystopian society of censorship, surveillance, and shadowy governmental control introduced the world to the concept of 'Big Brother', Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four increased by up to 7,000% within the first week of the 2013 mass surveillance leaks. -
Publication of Fahrenheit 451 against the backdrop of McCarthyism
Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and firemen burn any house that contains them. Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era in which the Senator produced a list of "communist" books to be confiscated and destroyed) about censorship and the threat of book burning in the U.S. For many years the book was published only in in a censored version. -
Comics Code Authority Established in U.S
The Code, drawn up by perhaps the toughest censorship authority in America for a time, was written in 1954 as an answer to a nationwide anti-comics movement. This was instigated by angry parents during a boom in graphic horror comics, and fueled by psychologist Dr Frederic Wertham's 1953 book Seduction of the Innocent, which blamed comics for "different kinds of maladjustment" in young minds. Soon, comics had such a bad reputation that 75% of the industry was forced out of business. -
Lolita seized by British customs
Perhaps the most famous of all modern literary obsenity controversies, the war on Nabokov's opus rages to this very day. Upon its initial release, the editor of London's Sunday Telegraph, John Gordon, called it and "sheer unrestrained pornography." British Customs officers were then instructed by a panicked Home Office to seize all copies entering the United Kingdom. -
Howl Obsenity Trial ends in verdict of "Not Obscene"
"Howl" contains many references to illicit drugs and sexual practices, both heterosexual and homosexual. On June 3 Shig Murao, the bookstore manager, was arrested for selling Howl to an undercover police officer. City Lights Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was subsequently arrested for publishing the book. At the obscenity trial, nine literary experts testified on the poem's behalf. Supported by the ACLU, Ferlinghetti won the case when the poem was declared to have "redeeeming social importance" -
PEN Writers in Prison Committee Established
By the 1950s, PEN members were discussing the formation of a committee to examine cases of writers imprisoned or persecuted for their work and opinions. The Writers in Prison Committee came into being as a result, in April 1960. Despite – or perhaps because of – the Cold War’s polarising effect on the world, PEN’s influence spread internationally. -
Lady Chatterley's Lover goes on trial in the U.K
First printed privately in Florence in 1928, the book could not be published openly in its entirety in the U.K. until 1960. When the unexpurgated version was finally published in Britain by Penguin, the publishing house was brought to trial under a recently passed obsenity law. The book and ensuing trial provoked a storm of media attention and public interest and the subsequent not-guilty verdict resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the U.K. -
El Señor Presidente, the first modern 'Dictator Novel', published after thirteen years of censorship
A landmark text in Latin American literature, Miguel Ángel Asturias's 'El Señor Presidente' explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society. the novel's title character was inspired by the 1898–1920 presidency of Manuel Estrada Cabrera. Asturias began writing the novel in the 1920s and finished it in 1933, but the strict censorship policies of Guatemalan dictatorial governments delayed its publication for thirteen years. -
Black Beauty banned in Apartheid South Africa
With more than fifty million copies sold worldwide, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time. It extols the virtues of kindness and respect. It was banned by the South African government during the Apartheid era because of the word 'Black' in the title. -
John McGathern's 'The Dark' hints at Irish clerical abuse of children, decades before it is uncovered, and is banned
Set in the rural north west of Ireland, 'The Dark' concerns itself with themes of adolescence and guilty sexuality. It was banned in Ireland for its alleged pornographic content and suggestions of sexual abuse by the clergy, and The Dark also led to McGahern being dismissed from his job as a teacher. -
The Master and Margarita published 26 years after Mikhail Bulgakov's death
Spared death or disappearance by Stalin's bizarre personal interest in his work, Bulgakov was nevertheless banned from publishing any of the satirical critiques that spoke with his truest voice. Chief among them was this anarchic tale of the Devil's visit to a fervently atheistic, smotheringly bureaucratic Moscow. Not published until 26 years after the author's death, this now-established classic gave the world that most memorable of anti-censorship mantras: "Manuscripts don't burn." -
PEN President Arthur Miller Helps Free Wole Soyinka
In 1967, under the presidency of American playwright Arthur Miller, PEN appealed to Nigeria on behalf of playwright Wole Soyinka, who had been marked for execution by the country’s head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, during the civil war over Biafran secession. The letter was conveyed from PEN to Gowon, who noted the name of its author and asked if he was the same man who had married Marilyn Monroe. When assured that he was, Gowan released the prisoner. Soyinka went on to win the Nobel Prize. -
Iconic Czech Playwright and political dissident Václav Havel has plays banned, passport confiscated
A deeply politically engaged writer and activist, following his involvement with surpressed Prague Spring in 1968 Havel's plays were banned from the theatre world in his own country, and he was unable to leave Czechoslovakia to see any foreign performances of his works. In the years following the 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia his writings and political activities landed him in prison many times. -
Argentina's Last Dictatorship Censors, then Burns
On this day, in the middle of what would become known as Argentina's Last Dictatorship, more than a million-and-a-half books from the Latin American Publishing Center, which had been intended to spread reading and literature to a wider audience in and around the capital, were first censored and then ultimately destroyed by fire on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. -
U.S Supreme Court protects Slaughterhouse-Five...just about.
In 1982, having been deemed unsuitable and banned by a number of schoolboards in the U.S, a sharply divided Supreme Court found that students’ First Amendment rights were violated when Slaughterhouse-Five and 8 other titles were removed from junior and senior high school libraries. The Island Trees (NY) School District School Board removed the books in 1976 because they were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy.” -
PEN American Center Establishes Freedom to Write Award
Administered by PEN American Center and underwritten by PEN trustee Barbara Goldsmith, the FTW Award honours writers anywhere in the world who have fought courageously in the face of adversity for the right to freedom of expression. Awards have been granted to 42 writers from around the world. Of the 33 award winners who were in prison at the time they were honoured, 30 have subsequently been released. -
Russian PEN Finally Formed
Arthur Miller travelled to the USSR to meet with the Union of Soviet Writers, and was told bluntly that Soviet writers wanted to join PEN but for one major obstacle: the Charter. Miller made it clear that altering the Charter to suit the Soviets was not up for discussion, adding that the vision it articulated was what united PEN worldwide. He nevertheless made sure that dialogue across the East–West divide was kept open; but it wasn’t until 1988 that Russian PEN was finally formed. -
Iran's Ayatollah issues fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's death
In what has been described as "the most significant event in postwar literary history", in 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwā ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie following the publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses. The book angered many muslims around the world who saw it as blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad. This outpouring of rage resulted in numerous killings, attempted killings, and even bombings. Rushdie himself was forced into hiding for almost ten years as a result. -
Daddy's Roommate deals with the issue of homosexual parents for young readers/ makes Sarah Palin uncomfortable
Daddy's Roommate was one of the first children's books to portray homosexuality in a positive light. Consequently, the book has become one of the most challenged books in recent years with the American Library Association listing it at no.2 in their list of the 100 most challenged books from 1990-1999. It became a point of discussion in the 2008 US Election when it was alleged that, in 1995, Sarah Palin, then a councilwoman in Alaska, complained that the book did not belong in a public library. -
Sarajevo suffers the worst book burning in the history of human kind
On this day the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo was firebombed and destroyed by Serbian nationalists. Almost all the contents of the library were destroyed, including more than 1.5 million books that included 4,000 rare books, 700 manuscripts, and 100 years of Bosnian newspapers and journals.These numbers makes this event a single largest book burning in history of human kind. -
Ken Saro-Wiwa: a hero silenced
Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian writer and activist who led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational oil industry. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations. Despite an extensive international campaign led by PEN Centres around the world, Saro-Wiwa was executed having been convicted on widely discredited inciting murder charges. -
The God of Small Things goes on trial in India for obsenity
The God of Small Things earned the young Indian novelist Arundhati Roy millions of dollars in royalties, international fame, and the 1997 Booker Prize. It also earned her an obscenity trial. In 1997, she was summoned to India's Supreme Court to defend against a claim that the book's brief and occasional sex scenes, involving a Christian woman and a low-caste Hindu servant, corrupted public morals. -
Iraq's National Library Destroyed During 2003 Invasion of Baghdad
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iraq's national library and the Islamic library in central Baghdad were burned and destroyed. The national library housed rare volumes and documents from as far back as the 16th century, including entire royal court records and files from the period when Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire. The destroyed Islamic library of Baghdad included one of the oldest surviving copies of the Qur'an. -
Belarus Free Theatre Established
BFT, an underground theatre collective operating in secret in one of the most artistically restrictive countries in the world, aim to use art to "break through stereotypes of the Belarusian population that are imposed by the ideological system of Belarusian dictatorial regime." Rehearsals and performances (always free of charge for the public) are normally held secretly in small private apartments and almost all of the group's members have spent time behind bars. -
The King Never Smiles ban demonstrates extreme nature of Thailand's censorship policies
An unauthorized biography of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley, a freelance journalist who lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Thailand, The King Never Smiles was unceremonously banned by Thai censors before it was even published. In October 2011, Thai-born American Joe Gordon was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by a Bangkok judge for defaming the royal family by translating sections of the book into Thai and posting them online. -
Russian Journalist Anna Politkovskaya Murdered
In October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a high-profile Russian journalist from the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta who had received death threats for her reporting on the war in Chechnya, was found murdered in the lift of her Moscow apartment building. PEN International has since been at the forefront of efforts to bring her murderer(s) to account. -
Islamist Rebels Destroy Ancient Manuscripts of Timbuktu
Islamist rebels in Mali destroyed thousands of irreplaceable manuscripts in Jan 2013. As the French and Malian armies arrived in Timbuktu where the rebels were holed up, the insurgents set fire to numerous buildings, including two archives of manuscripts dating back to the 1200s. These documents, almost none of which had been digitized or recorded in any other way, covered the medieval history of Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the books had never been translated and their information is lost foever
