Amazon Removes Classic Anti-Mass Immigration Novel for 'Offensive Content'
They decided you shouldn’t be able to read this.
This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Mary Rooke
Amazon removed the paperback edition of French writer Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel “The Camp of the Saints” from its U.S. listings Friday, citing a violation of its offensive content policy.
Vauban Books, the publisher of the 2025 English edition, made the announcement Monday after the dystopian novel was flagged for “offensive content.”
The novel is dystopian fiction that examines what happens when mass immigration meets a society that has lost its self-preservation instincts. The story follows the choices made at every level of society as a horde of immigrants sets sail from India for France. The immigrants chose France because they had heard about its wealth and openness.
The response from the native French population is shaped by a mix of guilt and fear of appearing intolerant. The result is inaction followed by societal collapse. Over the course of the book, order breaks down and institutions cease to function. The arriving population overwhelms the existing systems, and the host society changes beyond recognition. Sound familiar?
Raspail’s book has become a cult classic, especially among the right, who view it as a parallel to our current societal changes brought about by mass immigration to the U.S. The left sees it as a racist book that promotes anti-immigrant theories. Raspail sees the host society as the villain because of its impotent surrender. He is warning us that a society that treats its own survival as immoral will not survive.
Vauban Books Editor in Chief Ethan Rundell was responsible for providing the English translation for the edition of The Camp of the Saints that Amazon removed. Rundell, who studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, told the Daily Caller that while he expected something like this to happen in England he never expected the U.S. to embrace the anti-free-speech policies implemented by Amazon.
“Given the dire predicament of free speech in Great Britain, I have long been prepared for something like this to happen there. It never occurred to me that it was in the United States that we would first feel the bite of censorship,” Rundell said.
“Camp has consistently been ranked in the top 10,000 books on Amazon since its release last September and during that time has spent long periods as the best-selling book in a number of sub-categories (French literature, Immigration & Emigration Studies),” he added.
Retired U.S. diplomat Alberto Miguel Fernandez criticized Amazon for removing the novel while continuing to sell books written by or about communist leaders, and demanded that the company reverse its decision.
“Crazy, foolish action by [Amazon] that must be reversed. Meanwhile you can still purchase the works of murdering communists Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Castro, Enver Hoxha and Kim Il Sung. I find that content deeply ‘offensive.’ So they removed a fifty-year old novel but not them,” he said.
Those leaders oversaw systems that produced roughly 100 million deaths through famine, purges, labor camps, and executions. The novel speaks directly to pressures that Western countries are facing today.
Amazon’s removal of the paperback edition does not prevent people from reading the book. The novel is still available for purchase directly from Vauban Books.
Still, the decision sends an ominous message to publishers and authors that certain topics carry commercial risk. And it’s one most will listen to when deciding which ideas are permissible to publish or write, knowing that Amazon, the world’s largest book retailer, has decided which dystopian warnings are allowed.
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