Yes, Slaughterhouse-Five Is Banned!

Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist who has become “unstuck in time,” jumping between moments of his life including his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied firebombing, his mundane postwar existence in suburban New York, and his alleged abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. Vonnegut’s fragmented, darkly comic narrative structure mirrors the psychological damage of war, and his repeated refrain “So it goes” after each mention of death became one of the most recognizable phrases in American literature. The novel draws from Vonnegut’s own experience surviving the Dresden bombing as a POW.

Slaughterhouse-Five has been banned, burned, and challenged for over half a century. A school board in Drake, North Dakota burned copies in 1973, prompting Vonnegut to write his famous letter calling the board members “cowards” and “un-American.” With nearly 200 total challenges, it has been targeted for its profanity, sexual content, depictions of violence, and what some challengers have called an “anti-American” or “anti-Christian” message. The book continues to be removed from school libraries in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Virginia, and Tennessee, proving that the impulse to suppress uncomfortable truths about war is as persistent as Vonnegut feared.