Big Brother, are you watching?
Sally Rooney’s books were pulled from U.K. shelves because of her support for Palestine
Sally Rooney’s Normal People was published in 2018. (Sukhmani Sandhu)
Irish novelist Sally Rooney is no longer on U.K. shelves.
Rooney has been forced to withdraw her books, including contemporary fiction bestsellers Normal People and Conversations with Friends, because of her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action.
Palestine Action is a pro-Palestinian direct-action protest group based in the U.K. In July 2025, the British government categorized Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, within the same bracket as ISIS and al-Qaeda under U.K terrorism laws.
Rooney, who pledged to donate proceeds from her sales to Palestine Action, became a “supporter of terror” and risked arrest on British soil. As a result, her publishers, Faber & Faber, announced that they’d come to a mutual decision to no longer sell or distribute her work in any format in the U.K., as they could not pass on U.K. earnings to Rooney.
And so we have it — the continuation of book bans and blatant censorship in our modern, “progressive” world. It seems that all the fictional dystopian worlds we read about as children, the films we watched growing up, and the abuses of power we were taught to take a stand against are eerily mirroring our very real lives.
In North America, banning novels has become an unfortunate norm. Nearly 34,000 book bans have taken place in U.S. public schools since 2021, PEN America reports. Novels that highlight marginalized or oppressed groups, and discussions on sex and sexual violence, are the most banned.
In Canada, 49 books have been removed or relocated from school and public libraries as of this April. B.C. libraries received 15 removal requests in 2026 alone, according to the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Creative School.
Banned books include Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a story where a totalitarian regime controls women’s bodily autonomy. George Orwell’s 1984 has been frequently challenged — a novel in which a totalitarian state is dictated by the omnipresent leader, Big Brother, who controls citizens through constant surveillance and manipulation.
Rooney’s novels primarily focus on the personal journeys of struggling young people in Ireland. They often highlight class inequality, power dynamics, and the complexities of both platonic and romantic relationships.
Her second novel, Normal People, is a coming-of-age romance following the wealthy Marianne Sheridan and working-class Connell Waldron as the two navigate their intense on-and-off relationship alongside other pressures in their lives.
The novel emphasizes real battles fought by younger generations — trauma, grief, love, and politics — things intertwined in the lives and relationships of, if you will, normal people.
To some, Rooney’s stories may be mundane and slow. To others, they put into perspective what society attempts to conceal. Her writing unveils the human condition with uncomfortably raw authenticity.
But, does Rooney’s story point to the future of publishing? Will writers today be forced to bite their tongues when it comes to their activism, become certifiable kiss-asses in order to secure book deals? Perhaps these are the sanctioned repercussions of challenging foreign law. But with the circumstances behind said laws, will more novelists have their work limited for simply opposing literal genocides put on full display?
Rooney’s prepared to accept the consequences of her political beliefs and activism. But from fans’ reactions, to writers and public figures’ open letter to the British government, which rejects the “repressive absurdity” of withdrawing Rooney’s books, it’s clear many refuse to accept the stance the U.K. has taken on censorship and human rights.
