Authors Speak in Celebration of Banned Books Week 2001
Audio Recordings
Lawrence Ferlinghetti on Howl
Tom Robbins reads Tropic of Cancer
Michael Chabon reads Love in the Time of Cholera
Allen Ginsberg's revolutionary poem Howl and Henry Miller's erotic masterpiece Tropic of Cancer are landmark works that reflect the power, pleasure, creativity, and challenge of great American literature. Yet both have been pulled from library and bookstore shelves, condemned as obscene, and otherwise suppressed and censored. In 1950 the United States government sought to bar Howl and Tropic of Cancer. Each was, and is, controversial, provocative, and unique. By challenging conventional ideas and modes of expression, each posed a threat to familiar taboos and ways of thinking. This is what makes them great. But to those who fear change and rebellion, it also makes them dangerous.
Not all banned books, however, address sexuality, human relations, and other existential questions, as Howl and Tropic of Cancer do. Nor are they all written for adults. In fact, the books that are most frequently banned in America today are J.K. Rowling's wildly popular Harry Potter books, about a bespectacled little boy who learns about wizardry, which were written for children. Administrators, parents, and school boards across the country have demanded that the books be kept away from children, claiming that they promote Satanism, belief in the occult, and anti-family values.
Such misguided attempts to stifle children's curiosity and natural interest in reading have led to the suppression of many beloved children's books over the years. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's 1961 Pulitzer-prize-winning classic, has often been banned because it deals with racism. Most recently, in August, a high school in Muskogee, Oklahoma removed the book from its reading list because the school's principal decided its subject matter might make some students uncomfortable.
The First Amendment was created to prevent such abuses and to protect artistic expression in all its forms, no matter how threatening it may be to the government or others.
Of course, the First Amendment protects everyone's right to free expression, and anyone who wishes to criticize or condemn a book is free to do so. No one, however, has the right to deny others the freedom to express ideas or opinions, or to suppress what someone else has written.
Throughout its history, the ACLU has fought to protect countless books -- including Howl and Other Poems and Tropic of Cancer -- from censorship. Each year the ACLU joins the American Library Association in celebrating Banned Books Week, a reminder of how precious our First Amendment rights are and how dangerous -- and un-American -- censorship is.
Now, in celebration of Banned Books Week, you can hear legendary poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published Howl in 1957, speak about the groundbreaking poem's history. You can listen to acclaimed author Tom Robbins read excerpts from Tropic of Cancer. You can also hear Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and other works, read from another banned book, Love in the Time of Cholera, by the Nobel-prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.