The author of the most banned book in America gave an interview to PEN America about being at the center of the conversation about literary censorship.
Maia Kobabe, whose graphic memoir, Gender Queer, has been the target of constant challenges over the past few years, talked to the literary nonprofit’s Jonathan Friedman about eir book, which has topped the American Library Association’s list of the most banned books for two years in a row. (Kobabe, who is nonbinary, uses the pronoun set e/em/eir.)
Kobabe said that e was taken aback by how long the controversy over Gender Queer has endured.
“I’m used to things going viral and sort of fading out of attention more quickly,” Kobabe said. “But we’re now heading into like the second full year of Gender Queer being one of the most challenged books. And so I think, really, it’s the longevity of it that’s the most surprising to me right now.”
Kobabe addressed the people who are advocating for the book’s removal from library shelves, asking them to “please read it before you judge it.”
“There are so many kinds of people in this world, and everyone needs a different kind of story,” Kobabe said. “And stories can serve multiple purposes. They can be mirrors, in which you see yourself, they can be windows in which you can see a view into another person’s lived experience. Even if a book does not seem useful, or valuable to one reader, it might be deeply valuable to another. That’s why we need lots of types of books and lots of types of stories.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
