With culture wars on the rise across the country, more and more school boards are voting to permanently suspend access to certain pieces of literature. We asked famous authors to describe how it felt to have their books banned, and this is what they said.
“Really? You want to hear my opinion on something? It’s been so long since anyone asked. Thank you.”
“People love a dancing monkey until that monkey allegorizes what’s happening in the Balkans.”
“You’d think conservatives would want students reading about women being second-class citizens in a world dominated by male rulers.”
“Wait, does deciding to ban Gravity’s Rainbow mean someone actually finished reading Gravity’s Rainbow?”
“Even if you take the books out of schools, you can’t protect children from the harsh realities of falling in love with a vampire.”
“It’s a little on the nose.”
“They can ban my book, but they can never take it off SparkNotes.”
“They’ll do anything to keep me from doing a book tour.”
“Without books like this, readers might not even know about police violence, which was actually a huge problem back in 2017.”
“To appease parents upset that the hero only wore a cape and underpants, I released a version where he wore no cape or underpants, but it only made matters worse.”
“I can’t blame them. The movie is way better.”
“What are you doing here? I faked my own death for a reason.”
“In hindsight, I regret writing such an unflinching portrait of the Vietnam War now that history has proven everything went great.”
“Great, now I have to go to the house of every girl in America and explain to her what a period is.”
“I’m deeply sorry for the book I published. Sex is not even a remotely funny word. It’s not even an onomatopoeia.”
“I mean, I get it, Slavic languages are pretty titillating.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll still find a way to ruin your kid’s AP English experience.”
“I don’t care. I died of a heart attack at the age of 44.”