Censoring Affection: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Rainbow Rowell’s Scattered Showers in the Context of Malaysian Book Bans

Abstract

This study critically analyses the censorship of Rainbow Rowell's collection of young adult short tales, Scattered Showers (2022), which was outlawed in Malaysia in 2024 on the grounds that it supposedly promoted LGBTQ+ beliefs that went against regional cultures. Using a qualitative technique and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the article analyses the ideological narratives found in government pronouncements, media reporting, and public reader responses in addition to the book's textual methods. The study aims to explore how the novel itself linguistically challenges heteronormative frameworks through narrative voice, emotive language, and character agency, as well as how institutional discourses depict LGBTQ+ representation as morally aberrant. The Malaysian government perpetuates the division between "Western immorality" and "local values" by portraying the text as a danger from foreign ideology, according to research employing Fairclough's three-dimensional CDA model. In contrast, Rowell's works undermine dominant discourses by normalising LGBT affection and emotional closeness through everydayness and inclusion rather than confrontation. The study concludes that censorship produces ideological meaning and strengthens social boundaries even when the material is not stated directly. This essay contributes to conversations concerning teenage literature, censorship politics, and the societal impact of literary discourse.