9 of the Most Controversial Books Published in English

This one’s provoked some serious controversy. Published in 1988 as Rushdie’s fourth novel, it features two Indian Muslims named Gibreel and Saladin who are trapped on a hijacked plane. When it explodes, they’re magically saved – but Gibreel assumes the persona of the archangel Gabriel and Saladin that of a demon. Thus begins a pretty toxic association with long-lasting effects on both of them.

One feature of the novel is fictionalised dream visions of the Prophet Muhammad’s life, and this is where the controversy comes in. The title is taken from an incident in the book where the Prophet apparently receives a revelation from Satan, mistaken for God, telling him to worship al-Lat, al-Uzzat, and Manat. The three are goddesses from polytheistic pre-Islamic times. Other events in the book which have caused offence are a scene where a number of prostitutes dress up as the Prophet’s wives, and a companion of the Prophet who declares that he’s changed parts of the Quran he was doubtful about as it was dictated to him.

The book received positive critical reviews, being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Harold Bloom also called it “Rushdie’s largest aesthetic achievement.” However, many Muslims viewed the book as blasphemous. In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa (with highly suspect, potentially political rather than religious motivations) ordering Rushdie’s death; though this lapsed in 1998, it remains technically in existence. Rushdie was subjected to police protection. Numerous bookstores in both the U.S. and UK were bombed, demonstrators led book burnings, and many countries in the east banned the book wholesale. There have been deaths: some of the demonstrations were fatal, and Rushdie’s Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was murdered in 1991. The Italian and Norwegian translators have also been seriously injured.

It would clearly be difficult to overestimate the degree of controversy caused by the book’s publication. However, things have changed significantly in the intervening 30-odd years. Though The Satanic Verses is still notorious, it generally fails to induce the same level of anger; the fatwa is essentially inactive, by Rushdie’s own account, and there have been no significant development for at least five years.

Popular in its own right, a number of highly publicised film version have helped catapult this 1955 novel into stardom. It centres on the eponymous “Lolita,” a 12-year-old American girl who spends most of the book trapped in a paedophiliac relationship with her stepfather Humbert Humbert. Nabokov initially struggled to find publishers: Viking, Simon and Schuster, Doubleday, and many others turned him down. Eventually he resorted to printing it through the French Olympia Press, which predominantly published erotica.

Compared to The Satanic Verses, the international reaction might seem muted. Britain and France both banned the book, but for no more than a few years each. Interestingly, though, unlike the other books on this list, the controversy surrounding Lolita has arguably grown (in some areas) rather than diminished as time has passed. It’s an exquisitely written book, full of literary allusions and beautiful prose. However, the subject matter is of course very disturbing, and I think it’s fair to suggest that modern readers are more sensitive to the sexual abuse of Lolita than 1950s readers might have been. Many 20th century critics, such as Lionel Trilling, found Humbert a sympathetic character, and did not dispute his own claims that Lolita initiated their relationship; in recent decades, however, critics have pointed out how unreliable Humbert’s narration is, and many have explicitly called him out as a rapist – something less common in the wake of its direct publication.

Out in 1974, Cormier’s The Chocolate War is one of the earliest novels to have been recognisably published within the YA designation. It tells the story of Jerry – a 14-year-old student at a Catholic high school who becomes embroiled in a conflict between the faculty and the school secret society. Think elements of Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace.

The book has often been challenged for its portrayals of sex, language, and violence, common complaints when it comes to young adult literature. It’s been banned (at one point or another) in at least fourteen states and challenged in a score of others. The most recent of these seems to have been in 2007. Though things have calmed down since then, Cormier was, in general, a controversial author. His books were criticised many times for their content, but his own response was that “the kids can absorb my kind of book because they know this kind of thing happens in life.”

This is essentially the book which broke the United State’s obscenity laws, much the way Lady Chatterley’s Lover did for the UK.

Tropic of Cancer was published in 1934 and is a semi-autobiographical account of Miller’s life, featuring numerous explicit sex scenes. The original publication was in France; the U.S. Customs Service banned its import, and legal attempts to have Miller recognised as a “serious writer” failed. The book was not published in America until 1961, by Grove Press. Immediately, there were scores of lawsuits, with 60+ suits being brought in 21 states over booksellers who stocked it. A number of state courts ruled it obscene and upheld the ban, but it went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1964, where Grove Press eventually prevailed in the case Grove Press, Inc vs Gerstein. Since then the novel has frequently been cited as one of the best works of literature of the 20th century.

Though Canada and Finland banned the book as well, there was – perhaps surprisingly – limited backlash from other countries. The UK eventually decided not to ban the book, mostly because many prominent literary figures (including T.S. Eliot) were willing to advocate for its merits. In any case, the UK had its own obscene books to worry about, which brings us to…

This is basically the OG of controversial books, causing ripples not just in the UK, but in a number of other countries too. Lawrence’s 1928 story traces the eponymous Lady Chatterley, whose husband has been rendered impotent due to a disability. She ends up embarking on an affair with her groundskeeper Oliver. Cue a book of profanity and explicit adulterous sex.

I can personally confirm that on a literary level, this book is rubbish. It’s boring, underdeveloped, and overuses the words “bowels” so many times that if you had a pound for each instance, you’d be Jeff Bezos. Being banned in six countries though – the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, the U.S., and India – seems a little harsh. The unexpurgated version could not be published in the UK until 1960, 30 years after Lawrence’s death and 32 years after it was first published in Italy. This gave rise to the landmark R v Penguin Books Ltd trial, which tested the newly-passed Obscene Publications Act 1959. If it could be proven the work had “literary merit,” it would be allowed to pass unscathed; a range of witnesses, including E.M. Forster and Raymond Williams, were called to testify. It was eventually judged “not obscene” and this paved the way for the relaxation of publication law.

Nowadays, of course, it’s not very controversial at all. Nor should it be, since a book that bad deserves nothing but obscurity – in my humble opinion.