Carmen Maria Machado on the Consequences of Banning Books

For the New York Times, Carmen Maria Machado explains why banning books and challenging the ideas within them robs readers of a chance to better understand the world. “Those who seek to ban my book and others like it are trying to exploit fear — fear about the realities that books like mine expose, fear about desire and sex and love — and distort it into something ugly, in an attempt to wish away queer experiences,” Machado writes. “As anyone can tell you — as history can tell you — this is ultimately a fool’s errand. Ideas don’t disappear when they’re challenged; banned books have a funny way of enduring. But that doesn’t mean these efforts are without consequences.”