Creative Resistance

Authors are facing a new wave of book-banning. Now, some groups are trying to circumvent the censorship.

“The Uncensored Library”

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you.” — Stephen King

Earlier this month, PEN America, a nonprofit celebrating writers and advocating for free expression, released its annual report on book bans, which, for the first time, included a formal accounting of works that have been suppressed, withheld or otherwise restricted. The trends are stark and chilling. According to PEN’s Index of School Book Bans, between July 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022 there have been 1,586 instances of individual book-banning, targeting 1,145 unique titles by more than one thousand authors and illustrators. 

The report notes a marked shift from earlier years, not only in the sheer number of challenges but — perhaps more alarmingly — in who exactly is doing the challenging. In years prior, demands to remove books had originated mainly among local community members. Over the past nine months, however, about 4 in 10 bans were initiated by state officials or elected lawmakers. Patricia Wong, president of the American Library Association, has referred to the unprecedented uptick in book challenges as “a new scourge” in the wake of the pandemic. Such state-sanctioned censorship, of course, does not bode well more generally for freedom of speech and thought, necessary conditions for true learning.

On the heels of the banned books report, PEN America released its Freedom to Write Index, which shows quite clearly that the crackdown on freedom of expression is happening across the globe. In 2021 alone, at least 277 writers and public intellectuals in 36 countries were detained or imprisoned. And it’s no better for journalists. Per the World Press Freedom Index for 2021, in 132 of the 180 countries surveyed, journalism is “constrained,” “seriously impeded” or “totally blocked.”

In the long sweep of history, our freedoms to read and write are relatively fledgling, which makes this an especially grim moment for democratic ideals. I’m nevertheless optimistic, in part because I’ve witnessed the power of subversion, again and again in my native Pakistan, in my adopted America and online.