Ten books that were banned

Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis are the authors of Censored: A Literary History of Subversion & Control. One of ten books they tagged that were subject to silencing or censorship, as shared at the Guardian:

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

After a parent in Virginia complained in 2012 that her son had been required to read the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Morrison, which Republican senator Richard H Black described as “smut”, state legislators passed the “Beloved Bill” to give parents the right to opt their children out of “sexually explicit” reading in schools. The bill, which governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed in 2016, threatened to undermine school boards’ power to make curricular decisions and protect students’ right to receive information.

Read about another book on the list.

Beloved also appears on Jeff Somers's list of ten fictional characters based on real people, Christopher Barzak's top five list of books about magical families, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's ten top list of wartime love stories, Judith Claire Mitchell's list of ten of the best (unconventional) ghosts in literature, Kelly Link's list of four books that changed her, a list of four books that changed Libby Gleeson, The Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Elif Shafak's top five list of fictional mothers, Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten great books you didn't know were science fiction or fantasy, Peter Dimock's top ten list of books that challenge what we think we know as "history", Stuart Evers's top ten list of homes in literature, David W. Blight's list of five outstanding novels on the Civil War era, John Mullan's list of ten of the best births in literature, Kit Whitfield's top ten list of genre-defying novels, and at the top of one list of contenders for the title of the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years.

--Marshal Zeringue