Booklash Against Literary Freedom Through the Language of Harm
* Report: Booklash: Literary Freedom, Online Outrage, and the Language of Harm. Pen America, 2023.
URL = https://pen.org/report/booklash/
Excerpts
"Introduction: The “Problematic” Discourse and Books:
In the past few years, the literary community has seen waves of activism that have galvanized much-needed and overdue change in the industry. National movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo have pushed publishers to recommit to accountability, representation, and social justice more broadly. Readers are challenging stereotypes, stimulating new conversations about responsible storytelling, and pushing for a more diverse, representative publishing industry.
As PEN America previously detailed in Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity, and Book Publishing, our 2022 report on roadblocks to greater diversity in the industry, this new wave of literary activism is pushing for a more diverse literary canon, one that better reflects the American populace today.1 That work is far from done, and PEN America has called upon publishers to reexamine some of their core conventions – from the structure of author advances to the norms of the acquisition process –to open up greater opportunities for writers with varying backgrounds and degrees of access to the industry.2
Yet amid these necessary shifts, some readers, writers, and critics are pushing to draw new lines around what types of books, tropes, and narrative conventions should be seen as permissible and who has the legitimacy, authority, or “right” to write certain stories. At one extreme, some critics are calling for an identity-essentialist approach to literature, holding that writers can only responsibly tell the stories that relate to their own identity and experiences.3 This approach is incompatible with the freedom to imagine that is essential to the creation of literature, and it denies readers the opportunity to experience stories through the eyes of writers offering varied and distinctive lenses.
These critics have argued that “problematic” books or authors deserve special censure from the literary world—with “problematic” being a catchall term ranging from an author accused of committing a crime to one who relies on lazy narrative conventions. Fiction that is regarded as employing stereotypes, outdated tropes, or unrealistic character sketches may be described as threatening “harm” or being “dangerous.” In the past several years, books deemed problematic due to their authorship, their content, or both have been subjected to boycotts, calls for withdrawals, and harassment of their authors. Some have argued that merely to read the book is to become complicit in its alleged harms. While proponents of these arguments are, of course, free to make them, such arguments risk laying the groundwork for, and justifying, the ostracism of authors and ideas and the narrowing of literary freedom writ large.
Many of these conversations are happening in the realm of young adult (YA) literature. Engaged readers and writers predominantly represent younger generations especially attuned to the moral imperative of inclusivity and the ills of stereotypes and other potentially offensive tropes in literature. Even so, critics who apply a rhetoric of harm in their evaluation of YA books risk playing into the hands of book banners, who also use the language of harm and describe books as “dangerous.” It is imperative that the literary field chart a course that advances diversity and equity without making these values a cudgel against specific books or writers deemed to fall short in these areas.
In articulating this imperative, PEN America draws in part from the Manifesto on the Democracy of the Imagination, a statement unanimously endorsed by over 100 PEN Centers at the 2019 PEN International Congress, which says in part: “PEN stands against notions of national and cultural purity that seek to stop people from listening, reading and learning from each other. . . . PEN believes the imagination allows writers and readers to transcend their own place in the world to include the ideas of others.”4
Authors and publishers have felt compelled to respond to this intensifying form of literary criticism, which is amplified through online discourse. Authors accused of racial or other forms of insensitivity have sometimes apologized, sometimes held course. In rare cases, authors have taken the extraordinary step of delaying and editing their book to respond to criticism, even choosing to withdraw it from publication entirely. In some cases feedback is taken and changes made truly voluntarily, though it is sometimes unclear whether authors do so because they genuinely accept the critique levied against them or because they feel forced to compromise their artistic vision to appease their most vocal critics or to avoid inviting more widespread opprobrium.
Publishers, too, can feel obligated to address these criticisms, through apologetic statements, changes to author tours, or requests for edits. There have been several instances when publishers have responded by doing something far more drastic: canceling a book contract or pulling a book from circulation.
In researching this report, PEN America examined 16 cases of author, publisher, or estate withdrawals of books between 2021 and 2023, with the most recent occurring in June 2023.5 None of these books were withdrawn based on any allegation of containing factual disinformation, nor the glorification of violence, or plagiarized passages. Their content or author was simply deemed offensive. Fewer than half of the books are available for readers to buy today, and only four are still in print.6
While decisions to remove books from circulation remain relatively rare, each withdrawal sets a precedent: one where publishers see jettisoning a book as a legitimate response to criticism, even criticism from those who have not read the book. The normalization of this tactic threatens to shrink the space for risk-taking and creative freedom in the publishing world.
Some of the objections to books – as harmful, dangerous, or hateful, especially to children – that have led to author and publisher withdrawals mirror rhetoric that has led to pulling books from school and library shelves in Florida, Texas, and elsewhere. If advocates for an open society accept the principle that books should be as widely available as possible, that readers should have access to a broad range of topics and perspectives, that offense taken by certain groups of readers cannot be grounds to withhold books from availability, and that withdrawing books from circulation is rarely—if ever—justified, these precepts must extend not just to government book banning but also to how the literary community governs itself.
In major publishing houses, staffers have increasingly expressed opposition to specific book contracts with writers whom they allege to be promoting forms of harm, in some cases going so far as to demand that contracts be nullified. The debate within the literary field has become a debate within publishing houses, calling into question how these publishers define and balance their mission and moral obligations.
Perhaps the most profound articulation of American publishers’ mission and obligations comes from the Freedom to Read Statement, a document first drafted by a group of librarians and publishers in 1953 in response to McCarthyism and the moral panics of the Red Scare. It reads, in part:
We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend. We believe that every American community must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians have a profound responsibility to give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.
The imperative to “jealously guard” the freedom to read is a principle that stretches beyond adherence to the First Amendment and beyond vigilance against government interference. This guardianship also requires a stalwart defense of the right of authors to write books that others may find offensive—and the right of publishers to publish them, and of readers to choose to read them.
Of course, readers and the general public have the right to express their strong views, including on social media. Robust, even contentious public debate about books and literature is part of a vibrant democracy. And authors and publishers should be open to criticism for the books they release, including charges of racial, gender, or other forms of insensitivity. When challenged with such criticism, they should be afforded the space to reflect, engage in dialogue, and—where warranted—to change their minds. Advocates for free expression need not deny that, under particular circumstances, language may lead to concrete, measurable harm. This is particularly so when individuals or groups are subjected to pervasive stereotyping and denigration over long periods of time. Indeed, the written word’s power to prompt change in the real world is what makes writers the target of autocrats and oppressors around the world. But we are concerned when the rhetoric of harm is levied against a book such that any defense of the book’s literary or social merits is seen as automatically invalid. Such tactics mirror those of book banners who cite particular scenes or passages depicting disturbing events or that are sexually explicit to argue for removal of whole works of literature from classrooms or libraries.
Books are controversial for myriad reasons. As former PEN America President Salman Rushdie has famously said: “Literature is a loose cannon. This is a very good thing.” Defending a robust space for creative expression and for a broad exchange of ideas and perspectives requires making room for controversial books, books that offend, books that “get it wrong.” Employing a separate standard for books that are alleged to promote harm threatens the robustness of that space.
PEN America hopes this report will shed light on these debates, offer guidance, and argue for a firm defense of literary freedom. As a society, we need to be able to engage in free debate about books without resorting to denying readers the opportunity to read these books and come to their own conclusions."