Banned Books

A novel of courage in the face of oppression. Celie grows up in rural Georgia, navigating a childhood of ceaseless abuse. Not only is she poor and despised by the society around her, she’s badly treated by her family.
Why: explicit sexuality, profanity, violence, and portrayal of drug use
Pulitzer Prize Winner

The story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds.
Why: Too humanistic
Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in Literature and National Book Award

A story of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades, is attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain.
Why: Graphic violence
Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature

The animals of Manor Farm have revolted and taken over. Upon the death of Old Major, the pigs revolt against Mr. Jones, driving him from the farm. The animals embrace the Seven Commandments of Animalism and life carries on, but they learn that a farm ruled by animals looks more human than ever.
Why: political theories
Retro Hugo Award

In 1984, London is a grim totalitarian state where Big Brother is watching, and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith, drawn into a forbidden love affair, joins the secret revolutionary organization The Brotherhood. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Why: Sexuality, political ideas
Prometheus Hall of Fame Award

A gripping, heart-wrenching tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by prejudice, it views a world of beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Why: Conflicts with values of the community.
Pulitzer Prize Winner

The enchanting story of one man's journey in search of enlightenment Born into the privileged life of a Brahmin, young Siddhartha came of age surrounded by the teachings of the Buddha.
Why: Sexual content
Hesse won the Nobel Prize in Literature

A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, it captures the horrors of the Great Depression, probing into the very nature of equality and justice in America.
Why: Profanity, sexuality
Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature; Pulitzer Prize Winner

The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence.
Why:
Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature

In a parable of loss, disorientation, and weakness, a city is hit by an epidemic of blindness, whose victims are confined to a vacant mental hospital, while a single eyewitness to the nightmare guides seven oddly assorted strangers through the barren urban landscape.
Wny: Disturbing content such as violence and sexual content
Saramago won the Nobel Prize in Literature

A dystopian novel narrated by Kathy H., a clone raised to be an organ donor, who reflects on her life and friendships at a boarding school. It chronicles the lives of Kathy and her friends, Ruth and Tommy, as they grow up, come to terms with their predetermined fate, and face the complex emotions of love, friendship, and loss.
Why: Uncomfortable themes
Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize in Literature

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history.
Why: sexually explicit content, offensive language, and age inappropriateness.
Boeke Prize in 2004

Christopher Boone knows all the countries of the world and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals, but has no understanding of humans. This is the captivating story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog.
Why: Offensive language
Whitbread Book Awards for Best Novel and Book of the Year, the Commonwealth
Writers' Prize for Best First Book; Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

Follows an African American man's journey as he grapples with racism. After a series of humiliating experiences in the South, he moves to Harlem, where he becomes entangled with the Brotherhood. He then retreats to an underground hideout, where he reflects on the "invisibility" of his true self in a society that refuses to acknowledge his humanity.
Why: Profanity, violence, sexuality
National Book Award. #19 on Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

A collection of stories that give moral lessons through the personification of animals. The most famous of the stories are about Mowgli, the abandoned "man cub" who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle.
Why:
Kipling won the Nobel Prize in Literature

Heartbreaking and funny, this is the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Why: strong language and racial slurs, as well as topics of alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, and sexuality.
National Book Award Winner; Horn Book Award winner

Though Babbitt conforms to society and attempts to scale the social ladder, he gradually becomes dissatisfied with the American Dream. He branches out to test other, more rebellious ways of life but is disillusioned with the equally rigid standards he has found among the non-conformists.
Why:
Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Literature

Follows Sethe, born a slave and escaped to Ohio. Eighteen years later she is still not free. haunted by memories of Sweet Home and the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
Why: Violence, sexuality
Pulitzer Prize Winner

Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Why: profanity, sexual references, and materials deemed unsuitable for students.
Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature

Told through the perspectives of 15 different narrators, the novel explores themes of family, duty, grief, and the subjective nature of reality
Why: profanity, sexuality, anti-Christian.
Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature

The tragedy of the Compson family, their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy. The character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
Why: Banned under the US Federal Anti-Obscenity Act (AKA Comstock Law).
Winner of the Nobel Prize

A group of British schoolboys are stranded on an island after a plane crash. They attempt to establish a civilized society but ultimately descend into savagery and violence. The story explores the dark side of human nature when social order breaks down.
Why: profanity, racism, misogyny, portrayals of sexuality, use of racial slurs, violence
Golding won the Nobel Prize in Literature