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An alarming exposé 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 the past decade and a half, there is no doubt that American literature, especially children’s and YA literature, has become more inclusive--an important gain for social justice and minority representation. However, the movement for more diverse and sensitive books has also resulted in unintended and disastrous outcomes. In 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 of “dangerous” books 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 Twitter, 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, the author shows, 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,
List of contents
Table of Contents
Introduction: Welcome to the Sensitivity Era
1 The Ideas of the Sensitivity Era
2 The Behavior of the Sensitivity Era
3 The Political Economy of the Sensitivity Era
4 The Future of the Sensitivity Era
About the author
Adam Szetela
Summary
An alarming exposé 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 of “dangerous” books 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.
