Description
By (author) Adam Szetela
Short /annotation:
An alarming expose of the new challenges to literary freedom in the age of social media when anyone with an identity and an internet connection can be a censor.
:
An alarming expose of the new challenges to literary freedom in the age of social media when anyone with an identity and an internet connection can be a censor.In That Book Is Dangerous!, Adam Szetela investigates how well-intentioned and often successful efforts to diversify American literature have also produced serious problems for literary freedom. Although progressives are correct to be focused on right-wing attempts at legislative censorship, Szetela argues for attention to the ways that left-wing censorship controls speech within the publishing industry itself.The author draws on interviews with presidents and vice presidents at the Big Five publishers, literary agents at the most prestigious agencies, award-winning authors, editors, marketers, sensitivity readers, and other industry professionals to examine the new publishing landscape.What he finds is unsettling: mandatory sensitivity reads; morality clauses in author contracts; even censorship ofdangerousbooks in the name of antiracism, feminism, and other forms of social justice. These changes to acquisition practices, editing policies, and other aspects of literary culture are a direct outgrowth of the culture of public outcries on X, Goodreads, Change.org, and other online platforms, where users accuse authors justifiably or not of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other transgressions. But rather than genuinely address the economic inequities of literary production, this current moral crusade over literature serves only to entrench the status quo. ”While the right is remaking the world in its image,” he writes, ”the left is standing in a circular firing squad.”Compellingly argued and incisively written, the book is a much-needed wake-up call for anyone who cares about reading, writing, and the publication of books as well as the generations of young readers we are raising.
Review quote:
“English literature PhD Szetela’s cutting debut reveals how progressives’ moral panic has created a chilling effect throughout the publishing industry….the author offers incisive analysis, such as pinpointing how there is an ”inattention to class differences” inherent in these literary debates…the book’s most illuminating contribution is Szetela’s collation of dozens of anonymous interviews with publishing insiders.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Szetela explores the effects of left-wing identity politics on the publishing industry, focusing on the progressive activists targeting some children’s and young adult books for being offensive in terms of race, gender, and other matters. The result can be harassment of authors, cancellation of their books, and even loss of future work. Szetela compares criticism from the left with right-wing censorship efforts in their impacts on literary freedom. He traces the extent and techniques of the censorship and analyzes common avenues for mitigation, including the use of sensitivity readers and requiring that authors write only from their own experience. Using anonymous interviews with publishers, writers, sensitivity readers, librarians, and agents as well as theorists and studies, he explores whether censorship from the left is a moral panic and argues that adult anxieties play a role in restricting the content of children’s literature. Additionally, Szetela comments on the lack of attention to social class in publishing’s identity politics and offers a criticism of university culture, which he feels has enabled left-wing censorship. A sometimes-scathing commentary on the state of the publishing industry and identity politics, for readers worried about literary freedom.”
—Library Journal
“Szete
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.