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List of banned books

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Many societies have banned certain books. This is a partial list of books which have been banned.

Various scriptures have been banned (and sometimes burned) at several points in history. The Bible, the Qur'an, and other religious scriptures have all been subjected to censorship and have been banned in various cities and countries. In Medieval Europe, the Roman Catholic Church created a program that lasted until 1966 to deal with dissenting printed opinion; it was called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of prohibited books). Over the years many books based on the scriptures have also been banned, such as Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You, which was banned in Russia for being anti-establishment.

Books deemed critical of the state or its interests are another common target for banning.

Books that deal with criminal matter have also been subjected to censorship. Small-press titles that have become infamous by being banned include The Anarchist Cookbook, E for Ecstasy^{[citation needed]}, and Hit Man.

In the four-volume series Banned Books,^[1] the volumes were divided by grounds for banning: political, religious, sexual and social. The first three are often cited together as taboo in polite conversation.

Notably, children's books that deal with death or other teenage angst or various crimes often find themselves banned perhaps because of parental worries about teenage suicide or copycat crimes. Many publications are targeted on the premise that children would be corrupted by reading them. This fear led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954.

Contents 1 List of banned books 1.1 A 1.2 B 1.3 C 1.4 D 1.5 E 1.6 F 1.7 G 1.8 H 1.9 I 1.10 J 1.11 K 1.12 L 1.13 M 1.14 N 1.15 O 1.16 P 1.17 Q 1.18 R 1.19 S 1.20 T 1.21 U 1.22 V 1.23 W 1.24 X 1.25 Y 1.26 Z 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

List of banned books

A

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
All Quiet on the Western Front	Erich Maria Remarque	Anti-war novel	Banned in Nazi Germany for demoralizing and insulting the Wehrmacht.[2]
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain	Children’s/Adventure novel	Banned in 1885 in the Concord, Massachusetts library for being what the Public Library Committee called "trash."[citation needed]
Andersonville (novel)	MacKinlay Kantor	Novel	Banned in many places in the United States for obscenities and for promoting immorality. [3]
Animal Farm	George Orwell	Political novella	Publication delayed in UK because of anti-Stalin theme. Confiscated in Germany by Allied troops. Banned in 1946 in Yugoslavia. Also banned in Kenya in 1991 and in the United Arab Emirates in 2002.[4]
Areopagitica	John Milton	Essay	Banned in England for political reasons.[5]
As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner	Novel	Banned in Kentucky for language and for being anti-Christian. [6]
The Anarchist Cookbook	William Powell	Guide book	Banned in the US for security reasons, as the book contains recipes for numerous explosives. Sale of the book is prohibited to any one under 21 in some areas.[citation needed]
Angaray	Sajjad Zaheer	Progressive short stories	Banned in 1936 by the British government[citation needed]

B

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Bhavsagar Granth	Baba Bhaniara	Religious text	Banned in Punjab, India because it is deemed heretical by orthodox Sikhs.[citation needed]
Bible	Various authors	Religious text	Many translations of The Bible were banned by the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in the Catholic Church. Banned in the USSR for antireligious reasons.[citation needed]
Biko	Donald Woods	Biography	Banned in South Africa for its criticism of the apartheid system and white government.[citation needed]
Black Beauty	Anna Sewell	Novel	Was banned in South Africa in 1955 because of the use of the word 'black' in the title.[7]
Black Boy	Richard Wright	Novel	Banned in Mississippi; California; Nashua, NH; Island Trees, NY for being Anti-Catholic, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Christian and obscene.[8]
The Blue Lotus	Hergé	Graphic novel	Banned in China for its pro-Kuomintang view and support.[citation needed]
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights		Collection	Banned in many primarily Muslim countries for promoting non-Muslim faith[citation needed]
Bridge to Terabithia	Katherine Paterson	Novel	Previously banned in the US for its offensive language and depictions of the occult.[citation needed]
Burger's Daughter	Nadine Gordimer	Novel	Banned in South Africa in 1979 for going against the government's racial policies. [9]

C

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
The Catcher in the Rye	J.D. Salinger	Novel	Banned in various parts of the U.S. for language and sexual content. Also challenged and removed from several schools because the main character exhibits behavior deemed "inappropriate".[10]
Call of the Wild	Jack London	Novel	Banned in Yugoslavia, Italy, and burned in Nazi bonfires.[11]
Candide	Voltaire	Novel	Seized by US Customs in 1930 for obscenity.[11]
Civil Disobedience	Henry David Thoreau	Essay	Removed from US libraries during McCarthyism. Banned in South Africa[citation needed]
The Communist Manifesto	Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels	Economic treatise	Banned in anti-Communist countries and the US during the Red Scare. Challenged in libraries for political reasons.[citation needed]
Comentarios Reales de los Incas	Inca Garcilaso de la Vega	History of the Inca Empire and its conquest by the Spanish	Published in Spain by the son of Spanish conquistador and an Inca princess, its publication in Lima was forbidden by Carlos III of Spain during the uprising led by Tupac Amaru II, and was only published again in the Americas in 1918.[citation needed]
Confessions of Augsburg	Martin Luther	The ideas of Luther and Lutheranism	Published in Germany, outlawed by the Vatican, though specifically the Council of Trent (1545-1563)[citation needed]

D

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Dakar - The story of the Israeli submarine unit	Mike Eldar, Captain Navy	Israeli Navy History	The book was banned in 1997 by a district court, due to an alleged charge according to the "Official Secret Act" following the ban of Eldar's previous book "Flotilla 11" regardless the fact it had been approved by the Israeli military censor and despite the fact that over 2000 copies had been sold. Eldar was accused of "espionage", his home was searched, his website was shut down and his computer and documents were confiscated. Following a 4-year legal struggle, the book was released and all charges against Eldar were dropped.[citation needed]
The Death of Lorca	Ian Gibson	Biography, True crime	Banned briefly in Spain. [2]
Decent Interval	Frank Snepp	Nonfiction	Banned in the US because the author had published material that, as a former CIA employee, he was not allowed to publish. [12]
Did 6 Million Really Die?	Richard Harwood	Holocaust denial	Previously banned in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and most of mainland Europe, Germany and Austria in particular, for Holocaust denial.[citation needed]
Doctor Zhivago	Boris Pasternak	Novel	Banned within the USSR until 1988 for its criticism of the Bolshevik Party. [13]

E

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
El Senor Presidente	Miguel Angel Asturias	Novel	Banned in Guatemala because it went against the ruling political leaders. [14]

F

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Freedom Writers Diary	The Freedom Writers	Nonfiction	Banned in Perry Township, Indiana, for sexual content and racial slurs.[15]
The Fugitive (Perburuan)	Pramoedya Ananta Toer	Novel	Banned in Indonesia for being too communistic and for other political reasons. [16]
Flotilla 11 - The battle for citation	Mike Eldar, Navy Captain	Israeli navy history	The book was banned in 1997 by a government book committee acting under the "Official Secret Act" after it had been approved by the Israeli military censor and regardless of the fact that about 500 books had been sold. The book was republished in 2002 with no changes.[citation needed]
Flowers For Algernon	Daniel Keyes	Novel	Banned in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and challenged in Ohio and Wyoming.[citation needed]
For Whom the Bell Tolls	Ernest Hemingway	Novel	Banned in Spain during Francisco Franco's rule for its pro-Republican views.[citation needed]
Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury	Fiction	Banned in some US schools for being interpreted as critical of state-sponsored censorship.[citation needed]
Final Exit	Derek Humphry	Self-help Book	Banned by law in France.[citation needed]

G

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
The Giver	Lois Lowry	Novel	Banned from some schools in Kansas and California; restricted at schools in several other U.S. states. The book addresses many controversial themes including euthanasia.[17]
The God of Small Things	Arundhati Roy	Novel	Written in 1996, claimed to be portraying intereligion occasional sex scenes involving a Christian woman and low caste-Hindhu servant. Ban overturned in India.[18]
The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	Novel	Banned in many places in the US. In the region of California in which it was set, it was banned because it made the residents of this region look bad.[19]
The Gulag Archipelago	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	Nonfiction	Banned in the Soviet Union because it went against the common way of thinking there.[20]
The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments	Robert Brent	Textbook	Banned in the 1960s because the Chemistry experiments told as "simple" in the introduction of the book were simple but very dangerous.[citation needed]
Go Ask Alice	Anonymous	Novel	Banned in many US states because it suggests the idea of anti-family and also banned because of its descriptions of drug-use and offensive language and concepts.[citation needed]

H

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Harry Potter series	J.K. Rowling	Fiction- Fantasy	Banned in several schools in the United States and other countries due to supposed witchcraft .[citation needed] Complete Harry potter series includes books 1 through 7 have all been banned.

I

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason

J

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Journal of Current Pictorial	Chinese Alliance	Manhua	Banned by China's Qing government for spreading anti-Qing propaganda.[citation needed]

K

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Kaffir Boy	Mark Mathabane	Autobiography	Banned in a number of schools due to a controversial scene involving child prostitution and sodomy. As a result, Mathabane has authorized a revised version for use in such schools.[citation needed]
Karlsson-on-the-Roof	Astrid Lindgren	Children's fantasy	Banned in North America for subversive views on babysitters[citation needed]
Key of Solomon	Unknown	Grimoire/Magic	Banned in Europe by Pope Innocent VI 1350 (& burnt), and again in 1559 for being dangerous.[citation needed]
The Kincora Scandal	Chris Moore	True crime	Banned in UK for alleging British cover up over Satanic Abuse.[citation needed]
The King Never Smiles	Paul M. Handley	Biography	Banned in Thailand for its criticism of King Bhumibol Adulyadej[21]
The Kingdom of God Is Within You	Leo Tolstoy	Religious treatise	Banned in Tzarist Russia for its Christian anarchist content.[citation needed]

L

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Lady Chatterley's Lover	D. H. Lawrence	Novel	Temporarily banned in the United States and UK for violation of obscenity laws. Banned in Australia.[22]
The Last Temptation of Christ	Nikos Kazantzakis	Religious novel	Banned for blasphemy and its portrayal of Jesus.[citation needed]
Lajja	Taslima Nasrin	Novel	Banned in Bangladesh, and a few states of India for anti-Islamic sentiments. Apart from Lajja, Taslima's first four autobiographical volumes have also been banned in Bangladesh.[citation needed]
The Lasting Scar	Andrew Osmond	Novel	Banned from publication in the UK.[citation needed]
The Little Red Schoolbook	Soren Hansen and Jesper Jensen	Advocacy
The Lorax	Dr. Seuss	Children's book	Banned from schools in parts of the US for being an allegorical political commentary.[23]

M

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Mein Kampf	Adolf Hitler	Political ideology	Banned due to anti-Nazi laws. However, possession and sale for historical reasons is legal in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands[citation needed].
The Malay Dilemma	Mahathir bin Mohamad	Political ideology	Banned in Malaysia for its criticism of UMNO and the May 13 Incident. But the ban was lifted when Dr. Mahathir himself was made the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia.[citation needed]
Mephisto	Klaus Mann	Political novel / Satire	In 1968, Gustaf Gründgens' adopted son Peter Gorski sued Nymphenburger Verlagsbuchhandlung, then the publisher of Mephisto in West Germany. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that Gründgens' personal freedom (Article 2 of the Basic Law) was more important than the freedom of art (Article 5).[citation needed]
Mirror of the Polish Crown	Sebastian Miczyński	Anti-Semitic pamphlet	Because this pamphlet published in 1618 was one of the causes of the anti-Jewish riots in Cracow it was banned by Sigismund III Vasa[citation needed]
The Moon is Down	John Steinbeck	Political novel	Banned in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied countries during World War II. Distributed Illegally by various resistance movements.[citation needed]
The Mountain Wreath	Petar II Petrović Njegoš	Drama in verse	Banned in Bosnia schools by Carlos Westendorp.[24]

N

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Notre ami le roi	Gilles Perrault	Biography of Hassan II of Morocco	Banned in Morocco for political reasons.[25]
Native Son	Richard Wright	Novel	Banned in the USA for sexually graphic and violent content.[26]

O

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	Novel	Banned in the USSR for political reasons. Author was sent into exile.[citation needed]
On the Origins and Perpetual Use of the Legislative Powers of the Apostolic Kings of Hungary in Matters Ecclesiastical.	Adam F. Kollár	Legal-political	Banned by the Vatican in 1514 for arguments against the political role of the Roman Catholic Church.[27] Original title: De Originibus et Usu perpetuo.

P

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
The Peaceful Pill Handbook	Philip Nitschke and Fiona Stewart	Instructional manual on euthanasia	It was initially banned in New Zealand by Office of Film & Literature Classification since it was deemed to be objectionable.[28] In May 2008 it was allowed for sale if sealed and an indication of the censorship classification was displayed.[29]

Q

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong	Mao Zedong	Collection	Banned in South Vietnam and anti-Communist nations in Asia.[citation needed]

R

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
The Radsters	Anonymous author	Self Help	Banned in Australia as deemed excessively 'turgid'.[citation needed]
Rights of Man	Thomas Paine	Political	Banned in the UK and author charged with treason for supporting the French Revolution.[11] Banned in Tzarist Russia after the Decembrist revolt.
Rangila Rasul	Pt. Chamupati	Religious	Currently banned in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.[30]

S

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Si, Somos Lesbianas	Maria Fuentes-Perez	Novel	Banned in Cuba for homosexual content.[citation needed]
The Satanic Verses	Salman Rushdie	Novel	Banned in India, Singapore,[31] and Iran for blasphemy.
Shanghai Baby	Wei Hui	Novel (fictionalized memoir)	Forty thousand copies of Shanghai Baby were burned by the Chinese government. Rights were subsequently sold in 19 countries. 200,000 copies are in print in Japan alone.[citation needed]
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Series)	Daniel Handler, Pen-name: Lemony Snicket	Realistic Fiction	Banned in Decatur, Georgia because of objections to the suggested incest in The Bad Beginning and use of the word "damn" in The Reptile Room.[citation needed]
Soft Target: How Indian Intelligence Service Penetrated Canada	Zuhair Kashmeri & Brian McAndrew	Investigative Journalism	Banned in India.[32]
Spycatcher	Peter Wright	Autobiography	Banned in UK 1985-1988 for revealing secrets. Wright was a former MI5 intelligence officer and his book was banned before it was even published in 1987.[33][34]
Steal This Book	Abbie Hoffman	How-To Book	Banned in the U.S. until the late 1980's. This book was highly controversial because of its anti-government views.[citation needed]
Suicide mode d'emploi	Claude Guillon	Essay	This book, reviewing all the accessible recipes for committing suicide, was cause of a great scandal in France in the 1970's and the subject of a law edicted in the French parliament which forbids not only this book to be sold in France but any medium giving tips or recipes on the way to kill oneself.[citation needed]
Sex	Madonna	Photographic collection	Banned in Japan a week after it was released.[citation needed]

T

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Thalia	Arius	Songbook	Banned in the Roman Empire in the 330s+ for contradicting Trinitarianism. All of Arius writings were ordered burned and Arius exiled, and presumably assassinated for his writings.[35] banned by the Catholic Church for the next thousand plus years.[citation needed]
Tropic of Cancer	Henry Miller	Novel (fictionalized memoir)	Banned in the US in the 1930s until the early 1960s, seized by US customs for sexually explicit content and vulgarity. The rest of Miller's work was also banned by the United States.[36] Also banned in South Africa until the late 1980s.
The Turner Diaries	William Luther Pierce	Novel	Book stores and libraries refuse to distribute it because of its racist theme.[37] Banned in Germany for its Nazi ideology theme and Pierce leadership in the American Nazi Party. Blamed for a number of crimes allegedly inspired by the novel.[38]

U

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Ulysses	James Joyce	Novel	Challenged and temporarily banned in the US for its sexual content. Ban overturned in United States v. One Book Called Ulysses.
Uncle Tom's Cabin	Harriet Beecher Stowe	Novel	Banned in the Southern States and Tzarist Russia. Challenged by the NAACP for allegedly racist portrayal of African Americans and the use of the word nigger.[39]
United States-Vietnam Relations: 1945-1967	Robert McNamara and the United States Department of Defense	Government Study	President Nixon attempted to suspend publication of classified information. See: New York Times Co. v. United States

V

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason

W

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
We	Yevgeny Zamyatin	Sci-fi novel	Banned in the USSR for political reasons.[citation needed]
The Wealth of Nations	Adam Smith	Economic treatise	Banned in communist nations[citation needed] for its capitalist content.[40]
The Well of Loneliness	Radclyffe Hall	Novel	Banned in the UK in 1928 for its lesbian theme, republished in 1949.[41]
Wild Swans	Jung Chang	Novel	Banned in China for political reasons.[citation needed]
Winds of Change	Reza Pahlavi	Political science	Banned in Iran for political reasons.[citation needed]

X

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason

Y

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason

Z

Title	Author	Type of Literature	Reason
Zweites Buch	Adolf Hitler	Transcript	Possession and sale is illegal in Germany and Austria because of Nazi content.[citation needed]
Zhuan Falun	Li Hongzhi	Spiritual	Banned as part of the persecution of Falun Gong, which began in 1999.

See also

• Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England
• Banned films
• Book burning
• Censorship
• The Roman Catholic Church Index Librorum Prohibitorum
• International Freedom of Expression Exchange
• List of banned authors during the Third Reich
• List of banned writers
• List of controversial books
• List of most commonly challenged books in the U.S.

References

External links

• www.bannedmagazine.com, the journal of censorship and secrecy
• List of books challenged in Canada
• Minneapolis Public Library: Banned Books Week
• The most frequently banned books in the early 1990s
• HarperCollins books that have been challenged
• Judy Blume talks about censorship
• Original stories by censored writers
• Fahrenheit 451 Banned Book Blog: comprehensive list of links
• Banned cartoons
• Timeline of banned books in the United States
• Links related to Banned Books Week and book burning
• Banned books online
• Banned Books and Censorship: Information and Resources
• The Forbidden Library: Banned and Challenged Books
• Castro and the ACLU v Miami's Book 'Ban', by Humberto Fontova, author of "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant", 8 August 2006
• American Library Association's list of 100 most frequently challenged books (1990–2000)