Banned Books Week 2013: Foreign Cultures

Hesse's best-known and most autobiographical novel, STEPPENWOLF blends Eastern mysticism and Western culture, portraying one man's struggle to deal with a divided society and a divided self. During World War I, Hesse was labeled a traitor as a result of his antiwar sentiments, anti-propaganda behavior, and pacifist attitude, resulting in his work being banned in Germany from 1939 to 1945. 

 

THE OLD GRINGO by Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes is one of the most influential and celebrated voices in Latin American Literature, and THE OLD GRINGO is one of his greatest works. In it, Fuentes imagines the fate of the American writer/soldier/journalist Ambrose Bierce and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa’s soldiers. 

 

CANCER WARD by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn's semi-autobiographical novel examines political theories, mortality, and hope through the lens of a small group of cancer patients in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union. The patients' malignant tumors represent their moral responsibility in the suffering of their fellow citizens during Stalin's Great Purge, when millions were killed, sent to labor camps, or exiled.

What other international Banned Books do you enjoy? Let us know @MacmillanLib using the hashtag #BannedBooksWeek2013. See you at today's Twitter chat from Noon - 2 pm!