Margaret Atwood and Rupi Kaur among signatories on an open letter condemning Missouri law that encourages school library book bans
The bill makes it more likely that school boards will ban or pull books from their shelves to avoid potential charges.
Iran blames Rushdie for public attack; Scotland police investigating a threat to J.K. Rowling
An online poster told Rowling, "don't worry you are next."
“The final victory of the censor”: What is at stake in the Salman Rushdie assault
"This is the final victory of the censor: when people cease to be able to imagine a non-censorious society."
Early reports indicate Salman Rushdie attacked in New York
The author, who spent years in the 1980s and ’90s in hiding from an Iranian death sentence, was preparing to give a speech when he was assaulted.
Ted Cruz slams a book on policing during Senate confirmation hearing, sends the book to the bestseller list
The stunt by the junior senator from Texas backfired in the most spectacular way.
Freedom to Read Week 2022: From Plato to fake news, Eric Berkowitz provides a concise and nuanced history of censorship in the West
The history of censorship is inextricable from the history of power and in a changing world, it behooves us to consider how to balance speech and security.
Freedom to Read Week 2022: Notes against the resurgence of censorship in North America
This year, more than most in recent memory, it is essential to stand up for the right to read and to oppose those who would try to infringe upon that basic freedom.
The madness of art: Charlie English traces the congruence of mental illness, modernism, and artistic creation in a history with uncomfortable resonance for our present moment
A book about art produced by mentally ill psychiatric patients gave the Nazis cover first to eliminate the art, then to move on to the artists.
De Sade’s notorious manuscript scroll, an “emblem of literary and artistic freedom,” acquired by French nation for €4.55 million
The manuscript, deemed by the French government a national treasure, is one of the most controversial and frequently banned works ever published.
Hustle and flow: the Beat sensibility of John Rechy’s City of Night
John Rechy's 1963 debut novel is simultaneously a product of its time and somehow outside of time altogether.