Banned Books Week – Semaine des Livres Interdits

 Banned Books Week (” Banned Books Week “) is an annual awareness campaign promoted by the American Library Association and Amnesty International, celebrating freedom of reading, draws attention to books censored and challenged, and shines a spotlight on the persecuted. Held during the last week of September since 1982 in the USA, the campaign “emphasizes the importance of ensuring the availability of these unorthodox or unpopular views to all who wish to read them” and the requirement to keep the material accessible to the public so that people can develop their own conclusions and opinions.

 

From September 19 to 24, American libraries and bookstores in 16 states are denouncing censorship through meetings, exhibitions and debates on their premises and on the Internet, and drawing national attention to the harm that censorship can cause.

 

Indeed, even today, in some US states, books are removed from the shelves of school and public libraries and bookstores on the grounds that they are morally or otherwise objectionable in the light of the standards applied by the censor (parents, school boards, pressure groups, clergy, librarians and teachers).