Overview
A gripping, centuries-spanning visual history and exploration of books by female authors who have been banned or silenced.
When it comes to censoring women’s writing, everything old becomes new again. Women Writing Dangerously is an astonishing, colorful exploration of the consequences women writers have faced when their books became controversial, honoring those who fought the system by using their pens and typewriters as weapons.
Books by women have long been targeted, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017). There is an uncanny resemblance between the invective used against Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (2017)—the most widely banned book from 2021 to 2022—and that against The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928). Women Writing Dangerously traces the histories of these publications, alongside many others that dared to bring sexuality, race, and gender before novel audiences—even if it meant disastrous consequences for their authors.
Filled with historical ephemera, covers from forgotten books, and original illustrations, this dynamic volume shares not only the facts and figures, but the passion that went into creating these books and the heartbreak around their banning. Today’s censorship frenzy doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor is it going away any time soon; but through Nava Atlas’s in-depth research and storytelling, readers will walk away with a more enriched literary history emboldened by the past to fight for a future that ensures freedom of the press.
When it comes to censoring women’s writing, everything old becomes new again. Women Writing Dangerously is an astonishing, colorful exploration of the consequences women writers have faced when their books became controversial, honoring those who fought the system by using their pens and typewriters as weapons.
Books by women have long been targeted, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017). There is an uncanny resemblance between the invective used against Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (2017)—the most widely banned book from 2021 to 2022—and that against The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928). Women Writing Dangerously traces the histories of these publications, alongside many others that dared to bring sexuality, race, and gender before novel audiences—even if it meant disastrous consequences for their authors.
Filled with historical ephemera, covers from forgotten books, and original illustrations, this dynamic volume shares not only the facts and figures, but the passion that went into creating these books and the heartbreak around their banning. Today’s censorship frenzy doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor is it going away any time soon; but through Nava Atlas’s in-depth research and storytelling, readers will walk away with a more enriched literary history emboldened by the past to fight for a future that ensures freedom of the press.
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