Banned in Hand

This text serves to inform and discuss  Banned Books and Silenced Writing: A Matter of Life and Death It’s easy enough to think of a book ban as a mere formality; an annoying inconvenience to you, the reader, and to the author who will, of course, miss out on money as well as have to see their reputation be attacked. But book bans, being part of a greater political landscape, can mean more than just a book quietly disappearing from a list or from a shelf in your local library. For authors, having their books banned can result in harassment and threats – sometimes, even, to their lives.  Here is a list of a few authors who have experienced the darker effects of book banning firsthand: Ovid was exiled from Rome and had to live in Romania Dante was exiled from Florence Salman Rushdie , having lived under death threats from Iran’s Supreme Leader since 1988, was attacked and nearly killed at an American literary festival in 2022 Jeanine Cummins faced death threats after the publ...

 This text serves to discuss Book banning has a long history (you can read further about this here: link ) and has mostly had the purpose of sorting reading materials into categories or into so-called labels that describe the “problematic” content, such as discussing religion or politics offensively. However, the Oxford English Dictionary defines offensive content as ‘anything that may cause offence to a reader, particularly in relation to religion, race, gender, politics, sexuality, disability, or with regard to language that is considered obscene, vulgar, or taboo’, but this also creates further problems in the discussion of book banning with Benjamin Franklin describing this phenomenon: 'If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed'. Perhaps this is where we meet a grey zone, ‘[...] anything that may cause offence [..]’, every human has their own thoughts and ideas of anything such as wh...

Debate: This is the writer's opinion All Reading Is Political Imagine telling your own child that they cannot go out and explore the world. Seems weird, right? Now imagine a world where someone who has a higher power over society is calling the shots on what and what not the people in that society are allowed to explore. Seems almost dystopian. Am I right again? This is something that seems so obscure and terrifying to realize that it is, in fact, happening right now. All right, maybe not in the sense of exploring this world. Perhaps you know the saying, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” (Saint Augustine) By then banning books, they are limiting people's access to the world and to be able to explore by removing their access to “controversial” books. While yes, I can argue that some books should definitely be banned, like Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler; It should have been banned to limit his influence. However, arguably, books like The Bell Jar ...

  This text is an overview of the history of book banning.   Banned Books: A Tale As Old As Time The act of banning books is hardly a new phenomenon. Throughout history, books have been suppressed, banned, and even burned for reasons such as political, religious, or simply in the name of protecting kids from content that was deemed “obscene” or “inappropriate”. But where did it all begin? And what can we learn by looking at the long history of book banning? Books have been around for a really long time, and book bans – well, probably for almost as long. ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers) writes that as far back as in ancient Rome, poet Ovid was banished from the city and his text, Ars Amatoria (eng. The Art of Love ) was banned for its raunchy content and promotion of adultery. While there were likely other factors influencing the poet’s forced exile as well (such as possibly not being on the best of terms with emperor Augustus), there is no doubt that the...