Book banning in U.S. schools and libraries has reached unprecedented levels.

As the publisher of one of the most banned books of all time — Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale — Penguin Random House wanted to make a clear statement against censorship.

With officials across the U.S. engaging in censorship and even threatening to burn books, we asked one simple question: What if they couldn’t?

The result was the Unburnable Book, a one-of-a-kind edition of The Handmaid’s Tale specially designed to be impossible to burn. The Unburnable Book served as a powerful and tangible symbol of the indestructibility of words and ideas.

Our campaign objectives were to:

Raise awareness about the rise of book bans in schools and libraries and the threat to freedom of expression

Generate meaningful international press coverage and conversation on the topic

Raise funds to support the efforts of PEN America

Once we knew we wanted to create a book that was unburnable we had to decide which book. It couldn’t be just any title, we wanted to make a clear statement against censorship. It needed to have a connection to the types of books that were being banned and burned, and ideally an author alive and willing to participate. The dream was to get one the most banned books of all time, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The even bigger dream was if we could get her to torch her own book with a flamethrower.

You can’t burn a book that’s made to be quite literally unburnable. Let’s beat the book burner at their own game.

The Unburnable Book and the image of Margaret Atwood attempting to burn it with a flamethrower became an international phenomenon, earning 3.5 billion organic impressions — sparking astonishment, debate and a great deal of support for our client’s position on freedom of expression. The advertising value equivalency of the campaign was $35 million with no media spend.

The campaign attracted 5,230 organic media hits, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, ABC, CBS, People, Vanity Fair, Reuters and Fast Company. The campaign also garnered significant creative industry press coverage — highlighted in PR Week and ranked as the “top celebrity brand collaboration you need to know about” in AdAge.

The Unburnable Book succeeded in raising US$130,000 in support of PEN America’s important anti-censorship work. Most importantly, a book that censors wanted to ban landed back on the bestsellers list.