The dust-jacket photo of O’Connor’s 1952 debut novel, Wise Blood

Catholic Fiction: Flannery O’Connor and Self-Censorship

“Southern Gothic” short-story and fiction writer Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) is celebrated to this day for her wry portrayals of strange, often disturbing signs of life below the Mason-Dixon Line. But as a devout Catholic, she also practiced self-censorship in the form of avoiding or otherwise officially requesting permission to read works included on the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books. How did she reconcile the two?