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Authors Guild Relaunches Banned Books Club, Celebrates James Baldwin’s Centennial with Go Tell It on the Mountain

The Authors Guild Banned Books Club honors Baldwin's literary legacy and ongoing relevance in the face of continued censorship

Book Banning Free Speech

September 25, 2024

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New York, NY—The Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest advocacy organization for professional writers and journalists, today announced the relaunch of its Banned Books Club, with James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain as the first featured selection coinciding with the centennial of Baldwin’s birth.

Each month, the Authors Guild Banned Books Club will present a different work of fiction or nonfiction recently banned at schools in the United States. It will be hosted on the Fable social reading app, so interested readers can log on to Fable anytime during that month to access the moderated book discussion, including valuable resources to help get the most out of their reading experience.

Go Tell It on the Mountain, Baldwin’s semi-autobiographical first novel, has faced bans and challenges in various locations over the years, including Hudson Falls, New York (1994), Prince William County, Virginia (1988), Lemont, Illinois (2017), Nebraska (2022), and Iowa (2023). The book has been targeted for its frank exploration of sexuality, racial themes, and critiques of religious institutions.

The novel is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant and provocative works in American literature. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, and resonating symbolic power, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention. Set in Harlem in 1935, the novel tells the story of John Grimes, the stepson of a Pentecostal church minister, during a single day that will forever alter his life.  

Baldwin himself said of his first novel, “Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else. I had to deal with what hurt me most.” This statement underscores the foundational nature of the work in Baldwin’s career and its genuine reflection of lived experiences. The work offered Americans a deeper way to understand themselves, making it a cornerstone of 20th-century literature. 

“Baldwin’s voice remains as powerful and necessary today as it was when Go Tell It on the Mountain was first published in 1953,” said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild. “By featuring this significant work in our Banned Books Club, we not only celebrate Baldwin’s enduring literary legacy but also stand against the ongoing attempts to silence diverse voices and experiences in literature. Baldwin’s exploration of identity, faith, and the complexity of the American experience continues to resonate deeply, making it a perfect choice for our club as we confront the alarming rise in book bans across the nation.” 

The Authors Guild is actively combating book bans and censorship across the United States through a comprehensive approach of legal actions, public advocacy, and support for local initiatives. The Guild’s efforts include bringing lawsuits with coalitions to enjoin recently enacted state laws that require book ban laws in Arkansas, Texas, and Florida, with others to come. In both Texas and Arkansas, we secured preliminary injunctions with decisions that resoundingly found the laws unconstitutional. We have also submitted multiple amicus briefs in other book ban cases to protect artistic freedom and parental autonomy.  

The Guild has been vocal in condemning state-level censorship issues, such as Utah’s statewide book ban, Alabama’s censorship bill that could lead to criminal prosecution of librarians, and Idaho libraries going “adults-only” in response to state book-banning laws. Likewise, we have called attention to the many legal successes such as in an Iowa book ban case and protecting First Amendment rights in the Llano County Library case in Texas. 

In addition to Go Tell It on the Mountain, the Banned Books Club will feature the following titles over the coming year: 

1. The Giver by Lois Lowry 
2. Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall 
3. Looking for Alaska by John Green 
4. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones 
5. In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado 
6. Long Division by Kiese Laymon 
7. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 
8. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde 
9. Push by Sapphire 
10. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 
11. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi 

To support authors and books defended by the Authors Guild, readers can purchase titles through Bookshop.org at bookshop.org/shop/authorsguild.

For more information about the Authors Guild Banned Books Club and how to participate, please visit authorsguild.org/bannedbooksclub. 

About the Authors Guild and Authors Guild Foundation

With more than 15,000 members, the Authors Guild is the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization for published writers. It advocates on behalf of working writers to protect free speech, freedom of expression, and authors’ copyrights; fights for fair contracts and authors ability to earn a livable wage; and provides a welcoming community for writers and translators of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and journalism. Through its educational and charitable arm, the Authors Guild Foundation, it also offers free programming to teach working writers about the business of writing, as well as organizing public events that highlight the importance of a rich, diverse American literary culture and the authors who contribute to it.