Question: The title of the novel seems to an...

Question: The title of the novel seems to an ordinary christian offensive.
Philip Pullman: It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.

— Excerpt from a question panel for the book The Good Man Jessus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. Philip Pullman, an English writer from Norwich. He is the best-selling author of several books, most notably his trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, and his fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. The first book of His Dark Materials has been turned into the film The Golden Compass and the first two books from his Sally Lockhart series as well as his children’s novel I was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers have been adapted for television.