Home 5 News 5 Singer Pink to Give Away Banned Books

Singer Pink to Give Away Banned Books

by | Nov 21, 2023 | News

 

The American pop singer Pink is to give away 2000 copies of books that have been banned in the state of Florida.  The titles include Tony Morrison’s acclaimed Beloved and Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb, the poem she recited at President Gorman’s inauguration.

The banned books giveaway will take place at Pink’s concerts in Miami and Sunrise, Florida, and has been organised alongside the freedom of expression body PEN America which has recorded 3,362 book bans in US public schools in the 2022-23 school year, involving 1,557 unique titles. Of those, more than 40% – or 1,406 book ban cases – occurred in Florida school districts.  Under Republican governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has become a hotbed of challenges to free speech.

Pink says: “I can’t imagine my own parents telling me what my kids can and cannot read, let alone someone else’s parents, let alone someone else that doesn’t even have children that are deciding what my children can read.”

In February 2022 PEN America announced the Dohle Book Defence Fund, established in partnership with former Penguin Random House Markus Dohle to mark PEN America’s centenary, its aim being “to combat, in real-time, the rising threats to freedom of speech and open discourse within communities nationwide”

Dohle pledged to give at least $100,000 of his own money every year for five years. Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America, told the New York Times that the money would be used to help cover expenses related to PEN’s efforts to fight book bans including consultants, lawyers and costs associated with public campaigns and media events.

Dohle has recently been appointed to the board of the Sharjah Book Authority in the UAE where his voice is a powerful international presence.

 

Related Posts

Lords Defend Artists in AI Clash

Lords Defend Artists in AI Clash

In the UK, the House of Lords has dealt a fourth defeat to the government over its plans to allow tech companies to use copyrighted material to train their models. The Lords, who are looking for more protections for artists from AI, rejected the latest amendment to...

THE LOOK by Michelle Obama Coming in November

THE LOOK by Michelle Obama Coming in November

Crown Publishing Group has announced the upcoming release of THE LOOK, a new book by former First Lady Michelle Obama, set to hit shelves on November 4, 2025.   The book will be available in hardcover and eBook editions from Crown, with an audiobook version, narrated...

HarperCollins Bets on Fauzia Musa

HarperCollins Bets on Fauzia Musa

Juniper, the new literary fiction imprint of Harper Collins UK, has acquired the debut novel by award-winning journalist and design consultant Fauzia Musa that explores the lasting impact of Partition through the lens of one Muslim family.   Entitled The Strangling...

Previous Next
Close
Test Caption
Test Description goes like this