Physical attacks and threats of violence. Lawsuits. Criminal charges. All, alarmingly, have become everyday hazards for librarians in the USA. “Public libraries nationwide are reaching a breaking point,” declared PEN America in a report published last month. The same is true for school libraries as well. In culture war America, librarians are being portrayed as the bogeymen – sinister figures trying to pervert the minds of the nation’s youth. It’s rubbish, of course. The real perversion here is that of the truth. Access to a wide variety of books is demonstrably a net good for society as a whole. It’s good for the young and developing mind, where reading widely correlates with greater literacy, higher attainment and better emotional wellbeing; for minorities, who feel less isolated and othered through seeing themselves (and others) in diverse literature; for society at large, which always benefits from pluralism. It’s a disservice to deny children the right to read. But the language of “safeguarding”, appropriated by well-funded groups like Moms for Liberty for their own ends, is a powerful one which has left librarians exposed and under attack. While the USA might be home to the most fervent book-banning cheerleaders, the game wasn’t invented there. DH Lawrence, Gustave Flaubert, even Ovid – all faced down powerful people who accused them of promoting values other than the most traditional. Americans are not the only ones doing this today, either. In Viktor Orban’s Hungary, LGBTQ books were wrapped in plastic, as if even a quick leaf through could contaminate. Years back, Russia made the sale of LGBTQ literature illegal. Today, the same is happening in the UK. Our exposé last March of Lowry Academy in Greater Manchester, where nearly 200 books were removed from the school library and the librarian was forced out of her job, is but the most extreme example. Writing on the eve of Banned Books Week 2026, it’s important to highlight that book banning is not the work of the purity police alone. In many places around the world, it’s the literature that challenges governments and dares to defend human rights that is deemed to be beyond the pale. In the latest issue of Index Magazine (get your copy here!), I dive into the world of Hong Kong’s “yellow” bookstores – shops opened in response to repression, and that are now being forced shut. On one level, there are positive aspects to this story about book banning today: people are fighting back, in the UK and the USA and elsewhere. I never expected unassuming librarians and booksellers to become the heroes of our time, but many will not succumb to the pressure to censor literature without putting up a fight. Some are taking great risks to protect books that have been branded as illicit. I salute them. Others are standing alongside the librarians and the booksellers. Earlier this week, I shared a stage at London’s Institut Français with Marc Levy, one of France’s foremost writers. His most recent novel, The Bookshop of Forbidden Books, is an excellent example of people using their craft and platform to confront this growing trend. During our event, Levy pointed out that in today’s USA, the gun is afforded greater legal protections than the book – an absurd thing. As he noted, a book never killed anyone. Indeed, it’s much the opposite. Books have saved countless lives, and it’s our duty to save books in return. READ MORE

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