Celebrating Literature that Questions Authority: Institutions Defying Censorship
Books have often been feared as much as they have been loved. Over the years, texts that have challenged authority, orthodoxy, or even social conventions, have faced censorship. However, there are several institutions around the world that not only offer access to such books but also celebrate literature that questions authority. In Europe, one of the newest additions is the Manifesto Library, inaugurated earlier this year by singer and author-advocate Dua Lipa inside the historic Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal. Developed in partnership with her Service95 Book Club, the permanent library houses over a hundred books that have been banned, censored, or publicly challenged because of themes such as race, gender, sexuality, identity, and political dissent. Organised around the ideas of power , control, voice, and memory, according to the founder, the collection celebrates literature that questions authority while reminding visitors that censorship remains a global issue. Among other well-known initiatives is the American Library Association’s (ALA) Banned Books Week in the United States. While not a standalone library, it has encouraged thousands of public, school, and university libraries to establish permanent banned-book collections featuring works such as 1984 by George Orwell, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margeret Atwood, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee — all of which have in the past been banned in some parts of the world. These collections encourage readers to understand contexts behind censorship. Another such institution is the Freedom to Read Foundation, which works alongside libraries to defend access to contested literature. Across North America , many independent libraries maintain dedicated shelves of frequently challenged books, championed by the Freedom to Read Foundation. Notably, late author Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, while banned in Iran, was still being read and studied in other parts of the world. Another well-known graphic novel which was later adapted into a film, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, also faced bans in many countries, as did the mask of the historical character Guy Fawkes, which became a symbol of resistance. Project Gutenberg, one of the world’s oldest digital libraries, legally provides thousands of public-domain books that were once restricted or difficult to obtain. The titles include the King James version of The Bible, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Ulysses by James Joyce, Women in Love by DH Lawrence, The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. These titles are often curated by organisations like the ALA. Likewise, the Internet Archive preserves millions of digitised books, historical documents, and cultural records. In 2024, the Internet Archive lost a major legal battle against a handful of global publishers on copyright laws, forcing them to remove over 1,000 free access titles of censored and banned literary texts from the repository. Books being the object of conflict is not a modern phenomenon. In the 1940s, the Catholic church had added Jean-Paul Sartre, Alberto Moravia and Simone de Beauvoir to its Index of Forbidden Books, a list which had lasted four centuries. Burning of public books by the Nazis was a well-known tactic to dull the anti-establishment sentiment. In Eastern Europe, ‘samizdat’ (self or secretly published) networks secretly reproduced prohibited books under communist regimes. Banned book libraries remind readers and non-readers alike that many literary classics, from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 to Mark Twain’s Oliver Twist were once considered dangerous or anti-establishment, because they encouraged independent thought. Even now, governments across the world have opinions not only on certain titles, but also on the books included in school syllabi as well. As Alan Moore in V for Vendetta famously said, “Ideas are bulletproof.” These repositories are proof of just that.
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