Banning books is an old human custom. But the reasons can be interesting.

Over the years, many books have been banned. In different times and places, people have found them offensive. But do you know why?

Try to figure out why these books were banned.

Short answers, please.

1. Why did the censor in Hunan, China, ban Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1931?
2. The Anarchist's Cookbook is only banned in Australia, though if you order one online, you'll probably get on somebody's watch list. The author, now a respectable Anglican, wants the book to go out of print. Why can't he effectively ban his own book?
3. Did the Irish Republic ban Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy because it criticised British prisons?
4. Why were The Canterbury Tales banned in the US after 1873?
5. The Dictionary of Modern Serbo-Croatian Language was banned in Yugoslavia in 1966. What was offensive about this dictionary?
6. We all know Ulysses was banned in a lot of places. What excuse did the US judges give for lifting the ban?
7. Why did parts of California ban The Grapes of Wrath?
8. We know why the meat-packing industry objected to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. But why was this 1906 work banned in East Germany in 1956?
9. Why did the Greek government ban Lysistrata by Aristophanes – in 1967?
10. Who claims the copyright to Mein Kampf, and tries to prevent it from being printed?

Think you had the right insight into the censor's mind? Click the pic below for answers.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

26.01.15 Front Page

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