Issues and Impacts of Literary Censorship Today
How would you react if the book you came for at the library - or bookstore - had been banned from the shelves?
As far as I remember, I have always had the privilege of having books within reach. As a child, during Wednesday afternoons at the municipal library, I could choose my own bedtime stories, the ones my parents would read to me before I went to sleep. I was amazed by the choice available to me and by the multitude of children’s albums with fascinating and colorful illustrations.
This is how, from a very young age, books opened doors to the world. Every page turned was a new adventure, and every story enhanced my imagination and critical thinking. This love of reading helped me discover what I wanted to be when I grew up: a library assistant.
Learning this profession allows one to discover the essential role of a library, the importance of democratizing access to culture and implementing the necessary means to welcome a diverse public.
Libraries serve everyone, regardless of “their age, citizenship, political belief, physical or mental ability, gender identity, heritage, education, income, immigration and asylum-seeking status, marital status, origin, race, religion or sexual orientation” (IFLA code of ethics).
However, the missions of libraries are being threatened in countries where one might not expect this to be the case nowadays. Like my colleagues in the documentary information sector, I have observed the growth of a literary censorship movement in recent years, especially in the United States.
Perhaps you have read “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood or are familiar with the works of the contemporary poet Rupi Kaur. If not, rejoice: you can easily borrow them freely at your nearest library.
It is, unfortunately, not the case in several American States. The two aforementioned authors are just an example among many other writers whose books are now absent from the shelves of many school and public libraries, which are no longer authorized to make them available to their users.
As evidenced by PEN America’s 2023-2024 Index of School Book Bans – 2023-2024, an organization that “stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide”, the list of banned books is long.
Censorship not only affects libraries and their employees, it has an impact on the public who frequent them and, mostly (especially?), on those who do not yet frequent them. Similarly, people from diverse cultural backgrounds and those from the LGBTQUIA+ community are strongly impacted.
The dangers of cancel culture have already been felt during the troubled periods of the last century. Book burnings and blacklist implemented during the Second World War belong to a past not so far away, and certain major events related to current literary censorship demonstrate the we have not all yet emerged from Plato’s cave.
To tell you more in detail about the resurgence of literary censorship, we have therefore sought to analyse and understand the observable issues and impacts in our contemporary societies, by exploring several aspects that will be detailed in a series of articles:
In the end, it leads to a fundamental question: how can we form opinions and develop critical thinking skills about the world around us if we cannot access cultural resources?
Crédit photo: Chloé Wahl
By the same author:
Rencontre avec Tamar Songhulashvili : Un engagement pour l'intégration
L’intelligence artificielle au cœur de l’évolution du journalisme : débats et perspectives
Interdit de lire ? Chapitre 1 : décryptage d’une bibliothécaire
Dès mon plus jeune âge, les livres m'ont ouvert des fenêtres sur le monde. Chaque page tournée était une nouvelle aventure, chaque histoire m'a aidée à construire mon imagination et mon esprit critique. Cette fascination pour le monde des livres m'a naturellement menée vers ma vocation, devenir agente en information documentaire. Mon but est de continuer à connecter les gens avec les bons livres et les bonnes ressources numériques. Il me tient également à cœur de rester engagée dans la mission primordiale des bibliothèques : promouvoir l'accès à la culture pour tous les publics malgré les nombreux défis qui s'imposent.
