Penguin Random House has withdrawn a new novel by the author of Eat, Pray, Love because it is “set in Russia”. Elizabeth Gilbert had originally centered The Snow Forest around a group seeking to “resist the Soviet government” in 20th-century Siberia.
Now, Gilbert is apparently cancelling herself, or at least her next book, after what she called “an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers.”
According to Gilbert, those in the war-zone halfway around the world expressed “anger, sorrow, disappointment, and pain” over the fact that Russia was a backdrop for her story.
Gilbert told Twitter followers: “I want to say that I have heard these messages and read these messages, and I respect them. As a result, I’m making a course correction, and I’m removing the book from its publication schedule. It is not the time for this book to be published. And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm.”
The Ukrainian government has long pressed Western nations to adopt a “cultural boycott” of Russia by, for example, cancelling performances of music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky – despite the fact he died in 1893.
