Fourteen controversial themes
Explore the controversial or banned books featured on this site by theme:
Age-inappropriateBusiness ViewsDamaging LifestylesDepressing/DemoralizingEuthanasiaOffensive LanguagePolitical ViewsPrejudiceRacism/Racial IssuesReligious Views/BlasphemySexismSexual ContentSuicideViolence
The labels used are a reflection of why a book was controversial at a certain point in time, upon its publication or ban. They do not reflect our retrospective view of its content. For example, there is a clear theme of Sexism in Madame Bovary but the label is inappropriate, for our purposes, since it was never challenged in the 19th century for that reason. It was rather the Sexual Content.
Prejudice as a generic category refers to books which include themes of bigotry, apart from sexism and racism, such as those based on sexual orientation, disability, age, religion, political affiliation, etc. An example of that would be Of Mice and Men where there’s clear prejudice against the main character’s mental condition.
For the sake of simplicity, I bundled the theme of Racism with Racial Issues. They’re sometimes impossible to disentangle. A book might not necessarily contain racist content but deals with racial issues like White Niggers of America.
