Controversial Authors | Guy Portman's Blog

8 Controversial Authors

Apr 01 2016

Here are 8 recent/contemporary controversial authors. They are presented in the order in which they were born.

John Steinbeck JohnSteinbeck (February 27th 1902 – December 20th 1968)

John Steinbeck is one of the most acclaimed literary figures America has ever produced. His accolades include The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1940) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1962). He was highly critical of America’s economic policies, and a fervent supporter of unionisation. These views made him a reviled figure in some circles. His seminal work, The Grapes of Wrath, was burned on 2 separate occasions in his hometown of Salinas.

George Orwell GeorgeOrwell (June 25th 1903 – January 21st 1950)

George Orwell was opposed to totalitarianism and committed to democratic socialism, ideals that resulted in the author often courting controversy. His allegorical novella, Animal Farm, was seen as being highly critical of Stalin’s rule. Animal Farm and his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, were banned in the USSR. Orwell’s accounts of poverty in The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London did not endear him to all in his home country.

William S. Burroughs WilliamBurroughs (February 5th 1914 – August 2nd 1997)

William S. Burroughs was at forefront of the Beat generation, influencing the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Burroughs was a controversial character with a penchant for rent boys and heroin. His writing is characterised as being sardonic, dark and often humorous. Arguably his most famous book, the non-linear Naked Lunch was viewed as so scandalous at the time of its publication that it underwent a court case under U.S. obscenity laws.

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn(December 11th 1918 – August 3rd 2008)

Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, whose accolades included winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. His novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, is widely considered the most powerful indictment of the USSR’s gulag system ever written. In 1973 the first of his three-volume account about life in the gulags, The Gulag Archipelago, caused such outrage in the Soviet Union that he was expelled from the country.

Salman Rushdie SalmanRushdie (Born: June 19th 1947)

Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981. His fourth book, The Satanic Verses, was deemed offensive by many Muslims, as it refers to a number of allegedly pagan verses, temporarily included in the Qur’an and later removed. When Ayatollah Khomeini issued a Fatwa against the author in 1989, Rushdie was rushed into protective custody, as rioting, book burnings and fire-bombings raged through the Muslim world.

Chuck Palahniuk ChuckPalahniuk (Born: February 21st 1962)

Palahniuk has constantly courted controversy with the content of his books: no mean feat in today’s era of tolerance. His short story, Guts, about masturbation accidents, contained in his book, Haunted, was met with such shock that people even passed out at public readings. Haunted is often voted in polls as one of the most disturbing books ever written. It has been banned along with the author’s other works in many schools.

Taslima Nasrin Taslima Nasreen (Born: 25 August 1962)

Themes in controversial Bangladeshi author and poet Taslima Nasreen’s writing include female oppression and graphic language. When she criticised Islamic philosophy in her book Lajja (1993), a radical fundamentalist organisation called the Council of Islamic Soldiers offered a bounty for her head. The following year she fled Bangladesh to West Bengal. Concerns for her safety culminated in the author going into hiding in New Delhi. In 2015 she moved to the US.

Bret Easton Ellis Easton-Ellis (Born: March 7th 1964)

Bret Easton Ellis’s third novel, the infamous American Psycho, caused uproar even before its release date. The book was viewed by many in the literary establishment as scandalous, due to its explicit violent sexual content, and its perceived misogynistic elements. Easton-Ellis has continued to court controversy ever since, not only through his books, but also with his incendiary Tweeting habits, which have included Tweets on such sensitive subjects as HIV and Aids.

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History’s Most Controversial Authors

Mar 18 2016

The following 7 controversial authors are presented in the order in which they were born.

Aristophanes (Circa 446 BC – 386 BC)

Often referred to as ‘the father of comedy’, Aristophanes was an ancient Athenian comic playwright, whose plays are still performed to this day. Though regarded as being old fashioned and conservative, Aristophanes was also extremely controversial. Respected and feared for his comic wit, the playwright was merciless in his scathing satire of religion, politicians and poets. His victims included such influential figures as Euripides, Cleon and Socrates.

Aphra Behn
(July 10th 1640 – April 16th 1689)

Restoration era author, playwright, poet and political spy Aphra Behn was one of the first English women to earn a living from her writing. She was viewed as a literary role model by later generations of women authors. Behn’s written accounts of her romantic relationships with men and women provoked outrage. Other highly controversial themes in her works included women’s rights and the wrongs of slavery.

Voltaire
(November 21st 1694 – May 30th 1778)

Voltaire was unrelenting in his criticism of the establishment, church and the order of the day. His beliefs and determination to voice them did not endear him to all. The controversial writer endured 2 stints in The Bastille and a period of exile in London. His most famous work, Candide, is a satirical work that was widely banned at the time, as it was viewed as blasphemous and revolutionary.

Goethe Goethe (August 28th 1749 – March 22nd 1832)

German writer and statesman Johan Wolfgang von Goethe was a pioneer in fields as diverse as evolution and the theory of optics. In an era when the private nature of sexuality was stringently enforced, the erotic occurrences in a number of his works led to him being viewed as a controversial literary figure. Parts of his book, Venetian Epigrams, were withheld from publication due to their perceived scandalous sexual content.

Thomas Paine ThomasPaine (January 29th 1737 – June 8th 1809)

Author and political theorist Thomas Paine was one of America’s Founding Fathers. His pamphlet, Common Sense (1776) sold an estimated half-a-million copies during the course of The American Revolution. But it was the controversy of his later writing, particularly The Age of Reason (1794) that was to seal his remarkable fall from grace. His criticism of what he regarded as religious dogmatism led to Paine being ostracised.

D. H. Lawrence (September 11th 1885 – March 2nd 1930)

D. H. Lawrence was one of the most influential writers of his generation. Controversy courted the writer incessantly, primarily because of the perceived explicit nature of his works. One of his most famous novels, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, though published was heavily censored. 30 years after his death in 1960 Penguin attempted to publish the original version, but were forced to go to trial due to the Obscene Publications Act of the previous year.

Vladimir Nabokov (April 22nd 1899 – July 2nd 1977)

Russian born Vladimir Nabokov was a renowned novelist, lepidopterologist (someone specialising in the study of moths) and chess composer. Nabokov’s seminal work, Lolita, is about a man who falls in love with a 12-year-old girl. The book’s paedophilic theme resulted in it being rejected by numerous American publishers. Lolita was eventually published by Olympia Press, a Paris based publisher. To this day the book courts controversy.

7 Radical Authors

Feb 19 2016

This week’s blog post is dedicated to 7 famous authors, who were/are radical in one way or another. I hope you find it interesting.

Andrea Dworkin(September 26th 1946 – April 9th 2005)

Andrea Dworkin is best remembered for her objection to pornography. The radical feminist writer argued that there was a correlation between pornography and violence to women. In the late 1970s and 1980s she was a spokeswoman for the anti-pornography movement, often provoking the ire of liberal feminists with her polarising views. The 10 books she wrote on the subject of feminism include Woman Hating and Right-Wing Women.

Why Radical: radical feminist

Yukio Mishima (January 14th 1925 – November 25th 1970)

Japan’s most famous author was a controversial figure who held nationalist views and was obsessed with the Samurai code (Bushido). He even set up his own private militia. On November 25th 1968 Mishima and 4 members of his militia barricaded themselves in the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan’s self-defence forces. After delivering a speech, Mishima committed Seppuku, a Japanese ritual suicide consisting of disembowelment followed by beheading.

Why Radical: nationalist

Taslima Nasreen
(Born: 25 August 1962)

Themes in Bangladeshi author and poet Taslima Nasreen’s writing include female oppression and graphic language. When she criticised Islamic philosophy in her book Lajja (1993), a radical fundamentalist organisation called the Council of Islamic Soldiers offered a bounty for her head. The following year she fled Bangladesh to West Bengal. Concerns for her safety culminated in the author going into hiding in New Delhi. In 2015 she moved to the US.

Why Radical: critic

Marquis de Sade (June 2nd 1740 – December 2nd 1814)

The Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, philosopher and writer who was renowned for his libertine sexuality. His erotic writing was rife with sexual fantasies, pornography, violence and blasphemy. De Sade’s scandalous works made him a despised figure within certain circles, and on several occasions led to him being imprisoned. In 1768 he was exiled to his château at Lacoste. The words sadism and sadist are derived from his name.

Why Radical: sexual libertine

Emily Dickinson
(10th December 1830 – 15th May 1886)

Emily Dickinson was a prolific American poet, who penned over 1700 poems. However, she had fewer than a dozen poems published during her lifetime, and it was only after her death that she achieved fame. The primary reason for Dickinson’s lack of acclaim was her reclusive habits. By the late 1860s’ she very rarely left the house, and when speaking to visitors, she did so from the other side of her closed front door.

Why Radical: recluse

Leo Tolstoy (September 9th 1828 – November 20th 1910)

Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as being one of the greatest writers of all time. His most famous works are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. It was his time in the army and trips to Europe that led to Tolstoy becoming a Christian Anarchist. Vehemently opposed to state control, he argued that peaceful anarchy could only be brought about by non-violent revolution. His stance is explained in his essay On Anarchy.

Why Radical: political views

Victor Hugo
(February 26th 1802 – May 22nd 1885)

Hugo, a successful novelist, poet and dramatist, is considered to be one of his country’s finest writers. His most famous works are The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables. Hugo was an eccentric figure who did all his writing in the nude. The reason being that he believed it helped him avoid procrastination. Unable to leave the house unclothed, he would order his valet to hide his clothes until after he had finished his writing.

Why Radical: eccentric

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7 Politically Inclined Authors

May 08 2015

This is a post that I wrote a while back about famous authors who held strong political opinions.

The following 7 authors were all politically inclined:

Hunter S. Thompson

(July 18th 1937 – February 20th 2005)

The father of Gonzo journalism was an iconic figure in the counter-culture. Despite his love of firearms and ardent support of the Second Amendment, Thompson’s politics were firmly entrenched in the far-left. A sworn enemy of Richard Nixon, he was vociferous in his support of George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election. He covered the election in dispatches for Rolling Stone, which laid the foundation for his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72.

Click here to read my review of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

John Steinbeck

(February 27th 1902 – December 20th 1968)

John Steinbeck was a prolific novelist and short-story writer, and one of the most acclaimed literary figures America has ever produced. The author was very critical of capitalism and a supporter of unionisation, recurring themes in many of his books. His most famous work, The Grapes of Wrath, was viewed as so controversial at the time of its publication due to its criticism of the nation’s economic plight that it was burned on 2 separate occasions in the author’s hometown of Salinas.

Click here to read my review of In Dubious Battle.

Zora Neale Hurston

(January 7th 1891 – January 28th 1960)

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist and author, who wrote 4 novels and more than 50 short stories, plays and essays. Her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published in 1937. The highly opinionated Hurston could probably best be described as a conservative libertarian. Unlike many of her Soviet sympathising colleagues in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston, a staunch patriot, was vehemently anti-Communist. She often referred to them as ‘commies’ and ‘reds’ in her writing.

Maxim Gorky

(March 28th 1868 – June 18th 1936)

Maxim Gorky is one of Russia’s most popular authors. His opposition to the Tsarist regime led to him being arrested on numerous occasions. Gorky, who associated with many revolutionaries, became a friend of Lenin. Later he provided financial support to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Widely accepted as being the first famous Russian writer to emerge from the proletariat, Gorky is remembered as being a lifelong supporter of the Bolshevik cause and the founder of the Socialist realism literary method.

Click here to read my review of My Childhood.

Leo Tolstoy

(September 9th 1828 – November 20th 1910)

Russian novelist Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy is widely regarded as being one of the greatest writers of all time. His most famous works are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy was a Christian Anarchist, who believed that non-resistance was the only way to achieve a Utopian society. His beliefs influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Tolstoy’s argument that peaceful anarchy could only be brought about by non-violent revolution is explained in his essay On Anarchy (1900).

Kurt Vonnegut

(November 11th 1922 – April 11th 2007)

Vonnegut was an American author, whose writing incorporated science fiction, black humour and satire. He was a pacifist intellectual and supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union. When he died in 2007 The New York Times described him as ‘the counterculture’s novelist’. His seminal work, Slaughterhouse-Five, is a satire about a survivor of the notorious firebombing of Dresden in World War II. Its anti-war rhetoric has resulted in it being banned by numerous US schools and libraries.

Click here to read my review of Slaughterhouse-Five.

George Orwell

(June 25th 1903 – January 21st 1950)

Author and journalist George Orwell was interested in social injustice, opposed to totalitarianism and committed to democratic socialism. So strongly was Orwell opposed to Fascism that he even volunteered to fight in The Spanish Civil War. His experiences there gave rise to his book, Homage to Catalonia (1938). Orwell’s most famous works, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, both warned of the dangers of totalitarianism. They were perceived as being a thinly disguised attack on Stalin and banned in the Soviet Union.

Click on the links to read my reviews of Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.

Happy Birthday Bret Easton Ellis

Mar 06 2015

As Bret Easton Ellis, one of my favourite authors, turns 51 on March 7th, I am devoting this week’s blog post to him.

(Born: March 7th 1964)

Bret Easton Ellis rose to prominence when his impressive and controversial first novel, Less Than Zero, was published in 1985 when the author was only 21, and still studying at college. The social commentary and plotless realism that were to become Ellis’s trademark are in evidence throughout this nihilistic first person narrative.

My Review: Set in nineteen-eighties Los Angeles, the story follows eighteen-year-old Clay, returned home for Christmas from college in New Hampshire. Clay immediately falls back into the L.A. social scene, … (More).

Bret Easton Ellis shot to fame/infamy with his third novel American Psycho, which was widely condemned at the time of its publication for its violence and perceived misogyny.

My Review: American Psycho is a highly controversial novel that brought its young author Bret Easton Ellis instant fame. The book is written from the perspective of a young Wall Street financier, Patrick Bateman…. (More).

His fourth novel, Glamorama, is a satirical work that adeptly captures the hedonism of 1990s New York. In typical Ellis fashion the text is punctuated with numerous pop-culture references, in addition to sporadic descriptions of violence and prolonged graphic sexual encounters. Click here to read my review.

I have also read his sixth novel, Lunar Park. Lunar Park is a mock memoir that begins with a parodic account of the author’s early fame. Although I am a big fan of Bret Easton Ellis I found Lunar Park to be convoluted and self-indulgent. Click here to read my review.

To this day, Ellis, who has written 7 novels in total, 4 of which have been made into films, continues to cause controversy, not only through his books, but also with his incendiary Tweeting habits, which have included controversial Tweets on such sensitive subjects as HIV and Aids. This has left the author open to accusations from some that his social media antics are nothing more than publicity stunts. One might argue that controversy appears to be such an integral part of Ellis’s identity that he will never be able to willingly abandon it. However, regardless of this, there can be no doubt that the iconic author will always be remembered as a literary pioneer and erudite social commentator.

10 Famous Banned Books

Sep 05 2014

I am devoting this week’s blog post to a subject that never ceases to fascinate us, namely banned books. Over the years countless famous books have been banned for a host of reasons. I suspect that not so long ago my satirical black comedy Necropolis would have raised the ire of the authorities.

In chronological order here are 10 famous books that have been banned:

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)

Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed into a beetle. To compound matters Gregor’s family now see no use for him. Click here to read my review.

Why banned: Kafka’s books were banned in Czechoslovakia because he refused to write in Czech (Kafka wrote in German). The author’s works were also banned during the Nazi occupation and later by the communist regime.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (1928)

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a fictional account of an aristocrat’s clandestine love affair with the family gamekeeper. The book details their erotic meetings.

Why banned: Lady Chatterley’s Lover’s perceived pornographic content resulted in the original version being banned in the UK. Penguin published the book in its entirety when the decision was overturned in 1960.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)

Set during the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath is about a poor family from Oklahoma, who trek to California to start a new life.

Why banned: This Pullitzer Prize winner was banned from many libraries in the US, and was even burned, due to peoples outrage at its controversial depiction of the poor.

Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945)

This dystopian novel about animals living on a farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution and Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union.

Why banned: So controversial was the subject matter that the book was not published until more than a year after its completion. Animal Farm was banned in the Soviet bloc because of its political content.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)

Protagonist Holden Caulfield recounts his two day trip to New York following expulsion from his private school for fighting with his roommate.

Why banned: Between 1966 and 1975 the book was the most frequently banned book in schools due to its profanity, sexual references and the relentless negativity of its protagonist.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

The story is about a man named Humbert Humbert, who falls in love with a twelve-year-old girl, Lolita, the daughter of his landlady. Click here to read my review.

Why banned: Citing the book’s controversial subject matter and perceived pornographic content, the UK Home Office confiscated all copies of the book in 1955. Lolita was banned in France the following year, but never in the US.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

The story follows the life of Billy Pilgrim, a married optometrist and a survivor of the notorious firebombing of Dresden in World War II. Click here to read my review.

Why banned: Slaughterhouse-Five’s anti-war rhetoric has resulted in it being banned from numerous US schools and libraries. It is one of the American Library Association’s 100 most frequently challenged books.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988)

Having survived a plane crash, a Bollywood superstar has to rebuild his life, while the other survivor, an emigrant, finds his life in disarray.

Why banned: Many Muslims were offended by a number of allegedly pagan verses, which were included in the Qur’an, but later removed. It has been banned in Japan, Venezuela, and due to death threats, taken off the shelves of several US bookshops.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (1991)

The book is written from the perspective of a young Wall Street financier, Patrick Bateman. Patrick is an intelligent, well-educated, wealthy, good looking psychopath. Click here to read my review.

Why banned: American Psycho’s graphic violent and sexual content resulted in it being banned in Canada and Queensland (Australia). In the rest of Australia and New Zealand its sale remains restricted to those over eighteen.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (1996)

The book’s nameless narrator starts a fight club with charismatic anarchist Tyler Durden. Their fight club concept soon becomes very popular and spreads across the nation. Click here to read my review.

Why banned: Despite its violent content and anarchist philosophy, Fight Club was not widely banned. In 1999 the Chinese authorities prohibited the sale of the book due to it containing instructions on how to make explosives.

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I am the author of the satirical black comedy Necropolis.

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Controversial Authors (Part 7)

Jun 13 2014

This week’s blog post sees the latest instalment of my popular Controversial Authors series. It will likely be the last. However, as you may be aware from my never-ending Bizarre Author Death series, I am partial to changing my mind, and there may be a further instalment, or possibly two at some point.

Aristophanes

Circa 446 BC – 386 BC

Notable works: The Clouds, The Birds, The Frogs, Lysistrata

Plato, outraged by Aristophanes’ play, The Clouds, labelled it slanderous. The populist Cleon denounced his second play, The Babylonians, as being misrepresentative of the Athenian state. We can only assume any legal action Cleon may have taken was unsuccessful, as Aristophanes caricatured him relentlessly in his subsequent plays, most notably in The Knights.

Arguably Aristophanes’ most controversial work, the play Lysistrata, was written during the Peloponnesian War, a conflict the playwright was bitterly opposed to. The story is about one woman’s efforts to end the war. Having a female lead would have been considered highly controversial in male dominated Athenian society.

Over two thousand years later in 1873 Lysistrata was banned in America, due to its perceived obscene and immoral content.

J.D. Salinger

January 1st 1919 – January 27th 2010

Notable works: The Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey

The reclusive J.D. Salinger was an American author, whose seminal work The Catcher in the Rye spent thirty weeks on the New York Bestseller List, and went on to sell over ten million copies worldwide. To this day the book continues to sell around a quarter of a million copies a year.

At the time of its publication in 1951 many were concerned by what they regarded as the immorality and perversion of the book’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield. The text is replete with religious slurs, casual sex and prostitution; subject matters that were highly controversial in the conservative nineteen-fifties. One concerned parent counted two hundred and thirty-seven occurrences of the word ‘goddamn’, fifty-eight ‘bastard’s’, thirty-one ‘Chrissake’s’ and six ‘fuck’s’.

The book was later banned in some countries and in many U.S. schools. In the nineteen-seventies several high school teachers who had assigned The Catcher in the Rye were forced to resign from their posts. A 1979 study of censorship noted that The Catcher in the Rye was the most frequently censored book in America, in addition to being the second most taught (after Of Mice and Men).

Click here to read Part 6.

Controversial Authors (Part 6)

May 23 2014

In recent weeks I have written about various subjects including social media and my recently released satirical black comedy, Necropolis. This week’s blog post sees the latest instalment of the Controversial Authors series.

Goethe

(August 28th 1749 – March 22nd 1832)

Notable works: The Sorrows of Young Werther, Faust, Westlöstlicher Diwan, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

Johan Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His prolific and versatile writing, included works of prose, poetry, scientific studies and literary criticism. The iconic cultural figure was a modern thinker, who was a pioneer in fields as diverse as linguistics, evolution and the theory of optics.

The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, brought the young writer instant fame, and made him one of the world’s first international literary figures. The book was viewed by some as somewhat controversial due to its rebellious tone and the suicide of its hero, the nature of which brought accusations that it made suicide appear frivolous.

In an era when the private nature of sexuality was stringently enforced, it was the erotic occurrences in a number of Goethe’s works, particularly Faust, the Roman Elegies, and the Venetian Epigrams that were to lead to him being viewed as a controversial literary figure. Parts of the Venetian Epigrams were withheld from publication due what was perceived as their scandalous sexual content.

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn

(December 11th 1918 – August 3rd 2008)

Notable works: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, The Gulag Archipelago

Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist and historian, whose accolades included winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. His novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, appeared on the Independent newspaper’s poll of the top hundred books, and is widely considered one of the most powerful indictments of the USSR’s gulag system ever written.

After serving in World War II, where he was decorated for his courage, Solzhenitsyn was denounced for criticising Stalin in a letter and sent to the Gulag for eight years. Though the author remained an ardent critic of Soviet totalitarianism and a polarising figure in his home country, he found himself back in favour during the post-Stalin political thaw. In 1973 the first of his three-volume account about life in the gulags, The Gulag Archipelago, was published in the West. This caused such outrage in the Soviet Union that the author was denounced as a traitor, stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the country.

On his return to his homeland after the fall of Communism, the elderly Solzhenitsyn continued to court controversy. His magnum opus, Two Hundred Years Together, resulted in him being labelled by some as an anti-Semite, due to the book’s depiction of the role of the Jews in Soviet era Russia.

Click here to read Part 5

Controversial Authors (Part 5)

Aug 30 2013

This is the final instalment of the Controversial Authors series. Initially I planned for the series to have only three parts, but there are so many authors that have been regarded as controversial through the course of history that I added an additional two.

Thomas Paine

(January 29th 1737 – June 8th 1809)

Notable works: Common Sense, The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine was a political activist, author, political theorist, revolutionary and one of America’s Founding Fathers. He arrived in America from England in 1774, just in time to participate in The American Revolution. Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), sold an estimated half-a-million copies during the course of the revolution and is regarded as one of the most influential works of the eighteenth-century.

However when Thomas Paine died in 1809, his funeral was only attended by six people and his obituaries were universally scathing. Abraham Lincoln’s friends even burned a booklet he had written and over a hundred years after Paine’s demise, Theodore Roosevelt referred to him as a ‘filthy little atheist.’ If Paine had been martyred in The American Revolution there seems little doubt that his face would be gracing bills today. It was the controversy of his later writing, particularly The Age of Reason (1794) that were to seal his remarkable fall from grace.

In The Age of Reason Paine defended freedom against what he regarded as religious dogmatism, in the same manner that he had defended freedom against political tyranny during The American Revolution. The book was essentially a critique of The Bible, in which the author aired his own personal views on organised religion. These views were extremely controversial at the time of its publication and were to remain so over the forthcoming years. Though the author stated his strong personal belief in spirituality in the book, he was accused of being an atheist, something that was to cost what many view as his rightful place of honour amongst the The Founding Fathers.

Chuck Palahniuk

(Born: February 21st 1962)

Notable works: Fight Club, Haunted, Choke

Born in Pasco, Washington state, the American novelist and freelance journalist of Ukrainian descent, has constantly courted controversy with the content of his books; no mean feat in today’s era of tolerance. Palahniuk’s first novel, Invisible Monsters, a fictional story about a model who is shot in the face, was rejected by publishers for its disturbing content. His next effort, Fight Club, which remains to this day his most celebrated, saw the author attempt to be yet more controversial and scandalous than in his first effort. To Palahniuk’s surprise the book was published. It went on to become an international success, in no small part due to it being adapted for the big screen.

The film was extremely controversial at the time of its release in 1999, only six months after the Columbine school shootings. There had been much publicity over the perceived role of violent media in relation to the incident and Fight Club was viewed by many as glamourising violence. Real fight clubs soon began appearing throughout the United States and beyond, only adding to the furore.

Palahniuk’s dark and disturbing Fiction has continued to scandalise ever since. The short story, Guts, about masturbation accidents, contained in his book, Haunted, was met with such shock that people even passed out at public readings, only adding to the author’s notoriety. Haunted is often voted in polls as one of the most disturbing books ever written and has been banned along with the author’s other works in many schools. In Turkey, the translator of Palahniuk’s book, Snuff, was detained and interrogated by the police over what the authorities regarded as the book’s offensive content.

There seems little doubt that the author’s graphic depictions of violence and sex will cause more controversy, especially with further adaptations of Palahniuk’s books due for the silver screen in the near future.

Click on the links to read my reviews of Fight Club, Haunted and Damned and Adam’s (resident book reviewer’s) review of Survivor.

Click here to read Part 4 of Controversial Authors.

Controversial Authors (Part 4)

Aug 23 2013

I initially said that Part 3 of the Controversial Authors Series would likely be the final instalment, but I have since changed my mind. It seems fairly likely that there will also be a Part 5, possibly next week.

John Steinbeck

(February 27th 1902 – December 20th 1968)

Notable works: Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden

Born in Salinas, California, John Steinbeck went on to become a prolific novelist and short-story writer, and one of the most acclaimed literary figures America has ever produced. Steinbeck’s accolades include The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1940) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1962).

Steinbeck was and still is, though to a lesser extent, regarded as a very controversial author. Arguably his greatest work, The Grapes of Wrath, has been banned by many school-boards down the years. The book was even burned on two separate occasions in the author’s home town of Salinas. According to The American Library Association, Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004.

The author’s left-wing leanings are a reoccurring theme in much of his writing. Steinbeck was very critical of capitalism and a supporter of unionisation, as witnessed in In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath. Unionisation was highly controversial at the time of their publication, as it was viewed by many Americans as being inherently communist, a label incidentally often levelled at Steinbeck himself.

Steinbeck’s most famous book, The Grapes of Wrath, is about a poor family of Oklahoma sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their land during the 1930s’ Dust Bowl and The Great Depression. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck advocates for the under-privileged, concentrating on social injustice, poverty and criticism of the nation’s economic plight, something that was fiercely debated at the time of its publication and beyond.

Click on the links to read my reviews of In Dubious Battle, The Wayward Bus and Sweet Thursday.

George Orwell

(June 25th 1903 – January 21st 1950)

Notable works: Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Born Eric Arthur Blair in British occupied India, author and journalist George Orwell was interested in social injustice, opposed to totalitarianism and committed to democratic socialism; ideals that resulted in the author often courting controversy, something which appears to have appealed to the opinionated writer. So strongly was Orwell opposed to Fascism that he even volunteered to fight in The Spanish Civil War against the Fascists. His experiences there gave rise to his book, Homage to Catalonia (1938).

Orwell’s most famous work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book that warned of totalitarian censorship, has been viewed as controversial since its publication due to its themes of nationalism, censorship and sexual repression. The book was banned in Russia shortly after the translated version came out there, as it was deemed to be a thinly disguised attack on Stalin’s Soviet Union. Ironically however in 1981, parents in Jackson County, Florida, challenged that the book was ‘pro-communist’ and contained ‘explicit sexual content.’

Animal Farm, a blend of animal fable and political satire was finished in 1944, but so controversial was the subject matter that it was not published until more than a year later, so concerned were the British government that the content would offend the country’s communist allies. The book is widely viewed as being an attack on Stalin and his totalitarian rule. Not surprisingly Animal Farm was banned in Soviet countries due to its perceived political content. The book was often used for propaganda purposes by anti-communist factions in the U.S., something that concerned the author greatly.

It was not only his two most famous works that were viewed as being controversial. Orwell’s portrayal of the life of English industrial workers, particularly coal-miners, in his book, The Road to Wigan Pier, was regarded as such at the time of its publication in the U.K.

Click on the links to read my reviews of The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London.

Click here to read Part 3.

Tag - Controversial Authors

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