Granta Diary 2008

The Books They Tried to Ban

With a foreword from the Director of English PEN

The Granta Diary for 2008 is a colourful history of censorship and literary suppression, featuring the covers of books that have been banned by governments, courts and churches in the long struggle to prevent people reading what was deemed bad for them. We know about the trial for obscenity that followed the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960, but other titles may come as a surprise: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was banned in China in 1931 because it included speaking animals; Black Beauty was banned in South Africa in 1955 because the word 'black' appeared in the title; and in the late nineteenth century Pope Piux IX consigned the complete works of Zola to the Vatican's Index Librorum Prohibitorum, banning Catholics from reading them, because Zola was considered such a dangerous liberal. The Granta Diary includes these reminders and much else of what was once considered dangerous reading - writing that threatened happiness, morality and social stability - and provides a timely reminder that censorship seems always to be with us.

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Features fascinating facts about banned books worldwide and authors and censorship.