Writers in Revolt; an Anthology of the Most Controversial Writing in the World Today  

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Writers in Revolt; an Anthology of the Most Controversial Writing in the World Today (1962) is a book by Terry Southern, Alexander Trocchi and Richard Seaver.

Blurb:

It has been said that all serious writing is meant to disturb, to trouble the reader and cause him to reassess values, both those evolved empirically and those imposed by the society or time in which he lives. Thus, through the ages, the serious writer has of necessity most often been in revolt: against injustice, hypocrisy, outmoded forms of expression, or simply the status quo. It was Sade's writing, rather than his libertinage, that kept him incarcerated, and judged as dangerous, for most of his adult life. When Baudelaire's 'Flowers of Evil' appeared in 1857, he, his publisher and printer were prosecuted "for offence to the public morals," and the book remained underground for many years. Antonin Artaud, one of the most lucid men who ever lived, spent many years in an asylum to which he had been committed ( as "dangerous"). And, most recently, Henry Miller has been pilloried in his homeland two decades after most civilized nations have accepted him as one of the most important literary figures of the century. But society does not always prosecute or condemn its literary rebels; more often it merely ignores them, while kowtowing to the popular or "slick" writer who in no way shocks the sensibilities of his contemporaries. Thus, paradoxically, the work currently termed "anti-literature" - as typified by the writing of Artaud, Ionesco, Beckett, et al - is, the editors conclude, not only the true heir of the rebellion which began with Sade, but also in the mainstream of important writing. Along with the work of writers whose names are well known, the editors have also chosen to include several selections by authors who they feel are of similar stature and deserving of wider recognition.