‘Eat, Pray, Love’ author pulls new book set in Russia
Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert said Monday she had indefinitely postponed the publication of her forthcoming book after being criticized online for writing a novel set in Russia.
The move comes as publishers and institutions grapple with how to deal with Russian art and literature as the war in Ukraine continues. The uproar that drove Gilbert’s decision to withdraw her novel, set in 20th-century Siberia, suggests that the debate has extended to how the country should be portrayed in fiction.
“I’ve had a huge, massive outpouring of comments and reactions from my Ukrainian readers,” Gilbert said in a video posted to Instagram, “expressing anger, sadness, disappointment, and pain at my choosing to publish a book. to release in the world right now – any book, regardless of its subject – set in Russia.
She continued: “It is not the time to release this book. And I don’t want to harm a group of people who have already experienced severe and extreme harm and are still experiencing it.”
The publication of the book ‘The Snow Forest’ was announced last week and was scheduled for February 13, 2024, shortly before the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The novel follows a Russian family who withdrew from society in the 1930s to resist the Soviet government. As of Monday, the book had racked up hundreds of one-star reviews on the website Well readwith commenters on that website and on Instagram condemning the book’s Russian setting and characters.
Gilbert is a best-selling and critically acclaimed author whose memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love,” has sold millions of copies worldwide and has been adapted into a movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem. But even for a writer whose work is so well known, a wave of negative attention can hurt sales.
A representative for Gilbert’s publisher, Riverhead Books, said Gilbert had no further comment. She also confirmed that the novel is being postponed indefinitely and no decision has been made as to whether it will be revised.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, art institutions have tried to distance themselves from Russian artists and writers, in some cases even from dissidents. In May, PEN America canceled one panel at the organization’s World Voices Festival featuring Russian writers after Ukrainian writers objected. (Both Russian writers on the canceled panel, the journalist Ilia Venyavkin and the novelist Anna Nemzerleft Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine).
Last year, the Metropolitan Opera in New York cut ties with the Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko, who had previously expressed support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev, who denounced the invasion, had his concert tour in Canada canceled last year. The Bolshoi Ballet lost tours in Madrid and London.
Yet, despite the ongoing public pressure institutions face to shun Russian artists and artworks, it is striking that an American author faces backlash for setting a novel in historical Russia.
Other recent and forthcoming novels set in Russia or featuring Russian characters appear to have so far escaped similar scrutiny or calls for cancellation. Paul Goldberg’s new novel, “The dissident”, centering on a group of Soviet dissidents in Moscow in the 1970s was enthusiastically received judgement this month in The Washington Post, which “praised the novel’s fervor, black humor and an infectious enthusiasm for Russian culture.” Other Press will be released in October “Wizard of the Kremlin,” a novel in translation by the Italian and Swiss writer Giuliano da Empoli featuring a fictionalized President Putin.
And Russia has long been a popular setting for thrillers and spy fiction, though those genres often cast Russians as villains. Later this year, Simon & Schuster plans to publish Anna Pitoniak’s novel “The Helsinki Affair,” a thriller about a CIA officer who receives a tip from a Russian defector about a planned assassination and uncovers a conspiracy.
Reaction to Gilbert’s decision was mixed, with some applauding her sensitivity to an ongoing international crisis, and others expressing concerns about the consequences of pressuring novelists to avoid certain subjects and situations.
In a statement, Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, urged Gilbert to release her book as planned.
“The publication of a novel set in Russia should not be cast as an act that exacerbates oppression,” she said. “The choice of whether or not to read Gilbert’s book rests with the readers themselves, and those affected by it should be free to express their views.”