Morrison, Lebowitz, Blume Talk Censorship
By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 6/10/2009
Famed authors Toni Morrison and Fran Lebowitz gathered at a New York City cocktail party last week to talk about book banning—in libraries, schools, and stores.
Joan Bertin (from left), executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, Toni Morrison, Fran Lebowitz.
About 40 publishers, writers, artists, and supporters of the First Amendment met in the Manhattan living room of Jane Friedman, the former CEO of HarperCollins, who now chairs the Free Speech Leadership Council, a new initiative launched by the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Photo: Michael Marcelle
Lebowitz says she vividly remembers her first encounter with censorship at the age of 10. “Librarians censor books,” Lebowitz told the group about an experience she had with a local librarian in Morristown, NJ, who refused to loan her books by John O’Hara. “That’s like a prohibitionist being a bartender—my first experience with censorship was with a librarian.”
After Lebowitz’s mother Ruth gave her daughter permission to read the books, she was shunned by her community. “It was like she had a scarlet letter on her because she let me read O’Hara,” Lebowitz recalls.
Also in audience was Judy Blume, whose books often appear on the American Library Association’s (ALA) list of the most challenged books. She chimed in with her own early experience with censorship, which also took place at the age of 10 when she was denied access to John O’Hara’s Rage to Live (Random, 1949) by her public librarian in Elizabeth, NJ. Blume eventually got a copy of the book from her aunt, who was a school teacher.
Toni Morrison (left) and Fran Lebowitz.
Lebowitz also talked about the dangers of censorship by retail giants. “If Wal-Mart won’t carry a book because they think it’s steamy—or just good—that will affect your book more than any school district,” she says, according to Motoko Rich’s New York Times Book Blog Paper Cuts.
Photo: Michael Marcelle
Morrison, whose books The Bluest Eye and Beloved often appear on ALA’s list of most challenged books for their sexual content and offensive language, was also there to promote her latest book, Burn this Book (HarperStudio, 2009), a powerful collection of essays that explore the meaning of censorship and the power of literature to inform the way we see the world and ourselves. Contributors include literary heavyweights like Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman, and Nadine Gordimer.
Click here for photos of the event.
