Freedom to Read Week 2026: Author interview & Canada’s most challenged books

Freedom to Read Week (Feb. 22–28, 2026) is an annual event that encourages Canadians to champion intellectual freedom, including the right to read, think, and explore ideas freely. This week shines a light on the importance of protecting access to books, ideas, and voices of all kinds. 

To celebrate, Toronto-based author Erum Shazia Hasan kindly answered questions about her debut novel, We Meant Well, which was longlisted for the 2023 Giller Prize. 

The novel follows the story of Maya, a married mother of one who receives a call in the middle of the night. Her colleague Marc has been accused of assaulting a local girl in Likanni where they operate a charitable orphanage. Can she get on the next flight?

After the interview, keep reading to find a list of some of the most challenged books in Canadian libraries in recent decades.

What compelled you to write Maya’s story? 

Erum: I work in international development, so I find I’m often in different countries and surrounded by aid workers who live there. The first kernel of inspiration came to me in Haiti, when I was in a restaurant overlooking a mountain, sitting with various researchers, UN workers, and ambassadorial staff and noticed that the only Haitian people present were the staff at the restaurant. Looking around this table, noticing this stark inequality, I suddenly thought about how my friends back home don’t know about this cohort of people who are travelling to developing countries, working there not as migrants but potentially there to serve, while having immense power and social, economic, and political clout. I wanted to talk about these aid workers that I had not found much of in literature. We talk about immigrants, refugees, and those that move around, but less so about people who work with privilege in places that they’re supposed to enhance and improve.

Likanni is a fictional country, but it feels very real on the page. How did inventing Likanni give you permission to explore what might have felt harder in a real place? 

Erum: I feel that when we write about places that are uncommonly represented in English literature, those books become emblematic of a place. I didn't want to trap any country or culture within my own view of it. I wanted more freedom in terms of representation and imagination and did not want to speak on behalf of another community that may be underrepresented in literature. Through my travels, I started seeing commonalities in places that have been colonized and tried to capture those similarities within Likanni. There are nods to the foods or smells or colours from the different places I’ve been to.

We Meant Well asks readers to sit with uncomfortable truths about power, race, and intention versus impact. Why are novels like this important to readers in Canada and across the globe?  

Erum: Hopefully the novel highlights the interrelationships that exist among places, and how some choices we make in North America impact people elsewhere, and vice versa. It was important for me to have Maya going between places and living with that tension. I wanted to remind of the ties that bind so many of us—to think of hands that put together the pieces of products we consume, and how our preferences affect decisions elsewhere. I often think of that when having my morning coffee—I think of the farmers that pick those coffee beans that I’m enjoying in the privacy of my own home. There’s an intimate relationship between someone’s labour and someone else’s use, and I wanted to capture those interrelationships and how dependent we all are on them, even if it feels like are removed or far away.

The title suggests a good intention that may have caused harm. What made you feel like this title phrase was the perfect fit for Maya’s story?  

Erum: My husband suggested it! I think We Meant Well, for me, is the idea that intentions don’t always match the outcomes. This doesn’t take away from the nobility of intention, but until we truly face the consequences of our deeds, we cannot only rest on good will. There can be a certain level of defensiveness, especially in my line of work, to self-critique, i.e. “Is what I'm setting out to do truly being achieved? And if not, where did I go wrong?” We can’t really improve unless we question both our intention and outcome and truly face our failures—hence, this provocative title. 

While you were writing this book, did you ever hesitate on how it might be perceived or misunderstood or even resisted?

Erum: Yes, absolutely. When writing about sensitive subjects, especially sexual violence, I wanted to highlight the violation, while showing how the characters were not taking it seriously. But through the characters’ negligence, I did not want to diminish the actual horror of sexual violence. This is also a tricky thing to do when writing from the first-person perspective—some readers can conflate the main character’s views with that of the author. 

For readers discovering We Meant Well during Freedom to Read Week, what do you hope they take away from reading your novel? 

Erum: I hope readers feel like they had a new and overwhelming experience, that they breathed new places in, thought about things, and went to sites where their feet have never led them before. Maybe they felt torn, tense, and not sure. Overall, I want people to have a thoughtful and sensorial experience as they are reading this. 

Add this book to your TBR and the following challenged titles, voted on by Canadian librarians to spotlight for Freedom to Read Week. 

Browse more challenged books in Canada from recent decades:

A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler

Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story by David A. Robertson & Scott B. Henderson

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

Hold Fast by Kevin Major

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Who’s in Maxine’s Tree? by Diane Carmel Leger & Darlene Gait

My Body is Growing by Dagmar Geisler

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Pink, Blue, and You! by Elise Gravel, Mykaell Blais

Sex Is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg & Fiona Smyth

The Young in One Another’s Arms by Jane Rule

*Title availability may vary.

➡️ For more banned books, you can browse this list.

📚 Find more books at your local library through Libby, the library reading app.