The publisher, Penguin, attempted to circumvent the ban by printing 75,000 copies locally in 1970, before facing down legal battles across the country.Īfter more than a year of prosecutions of defiant booksellers and publishers, and two trials in New South Wales that both ended with hung juries, the censorship of Portnoy’s Complaint was finally lifted in June 1971, marking the end of book bans in Australia.
Portnoy’s story in Australia is well told: the novel was published in 1969 to great fanfare overseas, but it was deemed obscene and imports were banned at the border by John Gorton’s government.
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