"The FBI did not investigate writers according to their literary merits. As Kurt Vonnegut's biographer, I can tell you that, despite his publishing Slaughterhouse-Five— one of the most popular anti-war novels of the 1960s— the FBI didn't keep a file on him. But the bureau did monitor the lives and works of Amiri Baraka, Lorraine Hansberry (a 1,000-page file), W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, and Richard Wright, among others.
What the bureau opposed was African American literature and its potential— a backhanded recognition of that genre's power to influence readers. No cultural upheaval would be coming from the likes of Roth, Updike, or Mary McCarthy, for reasons you no doubt understand."
"The FBI did not investigate writers according to their literary merits. As Kurt Vonnegut's biographer, I can tell you that, despite his publishing Slaughterhouse-Five— one of the most popular anti-war novels of the 1960s— the FBI didn't keep a file on him. But the bureau did monitor the lives and works of Amiri Baraka, Lorraine Hansberry (a 1,000-page file), W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, and Richard Wright, among others.
What the bureau opposed was African American literature and its potential— a backhanded recognition of that genre's power to influence readers. No cultural upheaval would be coming from the likes of Roth, Updike, or Mary McCarthy, for reasons you no doubt understand."