Were Lewis and Tolkien Racist?
Door Jam: October 20, 2025
The Door Jam is a place to squeeze in articles about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, their work, adaptations of their fantasy worlds, news from other franchises, and interesting articles. Unless otherwise stated, I’m not endorsing (or criticizing) any of these but merely sharing them with you.
A college course called Decolonizing Tolkien has caused a stir, but what should we make of claims that characters in Middle-earth and Narnia were victims of “ethnic chauvinism”? We should better understand Tolkien, Lewis, and their writing, which is always good advice.
Recently, news broke of a college course at the University of Nottingham that apparently argues Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Lewis’ Narnia “demonizes people of color.”
First reported by The Telegraph, a history module called Decolonizing Tolkien and taught by Dr. Onyeka Nubia, a historian and writer, “uses a text that says orcs and other dark-skinned characters in the trilogy are the victims of ‘ethnic chauvinism.’”
I can’t speak to that course directly because I haven’t seen it myself. I also know many news outlets intentionally use overly dramatic reporting.1 But I also know this sentiment—Tolkien, Lewis, and others were racist—exists in some corners of the internet and academia.
Any fair examination of the life and writings of Tolkien and Lewis, however, would clear them of those charges. They both had a fondness for “the North,” but that was cultural and mythological, not ethnic.
The Telegraph article mentioned the Calormenes from The Horse and His Boy as evidence of Lewis’ demonization of non-white people. As we discussed in the read-along introduction to that story, Lewis modeled the culture on a hodgepodge of real and fictional people. His primary influences were A Thousand and One Nights and the Old Testament descriptions of Babylon.
Additionally, what many of Lewis’ critics from the left (and some of his would-be advocates on the far right) ignore is that, in The Horse and His Boy, Aravis, the young daughter of a high-ranking Calormene, marries Shasta, a prince from Archenland who grew up as a slave in Calormen. Positively depicting an interracial marriage in a children’s fairy tale in the 1950s seems an odd way to demonstrate white supremacy.
It’s also worth noting that both Tolkien and Lewis confronted Nazism. For his part, Tolkien criticized a Berlin-based publisher who wanted to publish a German-language version of The Hobbit, but first asked for proof of Tolkien’s ethnicity.
In Tolkien’s reply, he wrote that he “unfortunately” was not aware of any ancestry among the “gifted people” of the Jews. He called their question “impertinent and irrelevant.” He said that he had previously been proud of his German name even through the First World War, but that may no longer be the case. Again, Tolkien would be a terrible choice for a white supremacist.2
For better or worse, college courses are often outlandish and provocative, but they should at least have some basis in truth. If this course actually argues that Tolkien, Lewis, and their worlds were racist, then I’d suggest students would gain more from simply reading Tolkien and Lewis.
In fact, that’s always a good suggestion, no matter the moment. Read more Tolkien and Lewis, and ignore those intent on stirring up pointless controversies.
Not Safe But Good
C.S. Lewis quote of the week
Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country, but none will rise again until it has been buried.
Tumnus’ bookshelf
Books by or about Lewis or Tolkien
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer is one of Lewis’ more overlooked works, but it’s well worth a read. It’s one in which I always find a new insight every time I return to its pages.
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (ebook) by C.S. Lewis — $1.99 (86% off, normally $13.99)
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (ebook) by C.S. Lewis — $0.99 (84% off, normally $5.99)
Behind the Wardrobe
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