Khaled Hosseini, one of the world’s top authors, has slammed book bans in Florida and elsewhere in the US as a betrayal of students and their right to a good education.
According to a PEN America report released late last year, US public schools had about 5,894 book bans from July 2021 to June 2023, with more than 40% in Florida. Often, the authors whose books are targeted are “frequently female, people of color, and/or LGBTQ+ individuals”, PEN said.
“Banning books doesn’t protect students, I think it betrays them,” Hosseini told the Guardian in an interview.
