Jenan Matari and Nora Lester Murad are award-winning authors with children’s books featuring Palestinians. They have filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles after their invited author talk for teen patrons at Los Angeles Public Library was cancelled without explanation three days before the scheduled date of December 6, 2025. In this edited transcript, Jenan and Nora discuss what it feels like to be censored, the pervasiveness of anti-Palestinian racism, and their reasoning for filing the suit in order to save the integrity of libraries.
Nora Lester Murad: You and I met through the experience of being censored by anti-Palestinian racism. The Los Angeles Public Library invited me to talk about my young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, and you to talk about your picture book, Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden. Jenan Matari: The whole purpose of Read Palestine Week is to make space for Palestinian stories given the widespread censorship.
When they invited me to speak, I assumed the library must be on board. Aren’t all libraries against censorship, against book challenges, against racism? NLM: I learned a lot about censorship of Palestinians in libraries while putting together my recently-published co-edited anthology, Resisting Erasure: Libraries in Palestine and Palestine in Libraries.
JM: It’s so ironic that you were censored and released a book about censorship at the same time! Libraries are under attack not only by right-wing forces outside the library, but also by internal forces with nefarious political interests. Libraries are sites of censorship and also sites of resistance to censorship.
I don’t see the lawsuit as attacking the library. I see it as defending the integrity and credibility of libraries. JM: Some people are saying that we risk weakening libraries through our lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles.
They say we need to be defending libraries, not attacking them. NLM: We aren’t attacking the library. I see it as defending the mission of public libraries and values of librarianship.
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