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Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and other books, said Monday she was pulling her upcoming novel, The Snow Forest, from publication after online protests over its Russian setting. She announced their decision in a video posted on their Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Gilbert cited “an enormous, massive flood of reactions and replies from my Ukrainian readers, expressing anger, sadness, disappointment and pain that I was now choosing to bring a book into the world, any book, no matter the time what the subject is.” The thing is that it’s set in Russia.” She then said, “I’m going to make a course correction and remove the book from the publication schedule.”
Slated for release on February 13, 2024, The Snow Forest was inspired by the true story of a religious Russian family who left Russia in the 1930s to live a life of extreme solitude in Siberia just to be there discovered to be alive decades later by Soviet geologists, according to Gilbert’s publisher Riverhead Books. Gilbert has described The characters decide to “retire from society to oppose the Soviet government and try to defend nature against industrialization”. In a video message to her fans last week, Gilbert said, “This is a book that takes you into the deepest reaches of the Siberian taiga and into the heart and mind of an extraordinary girl who was born into this world, a girl by.” great spiritual and creative talent that grew up far, far, far away from anything we consider normal.”
The Snow Forest currently has an average one-star rating on Goodreads, and since June 10 hundreds have posted comments criticizing Gilbert for romanticizing Russian culture. “It looks like Elizabeth Gilbert herself has been ‘living isolated and undetected’ for the last few years. After all, how else to explain publishing an ‘inspirational story’ about Russians at the very moment when they are committing genocide against Ukrainians?” wrote one reviewer. Others pointed out that the announced release date was just before the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Important announcement about THE SNOW FOREST. Please note that if you have been charged for your pre-order, you will be fully refunded. Thanks very much. pic.twitter.com/OAEmrjtfJx
— Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) June 12, 2023
Gilbert’s announcement received a mixed response on social media: dozens thanked and praised Gilbert for what they called a “brave” decision, as well as for her integrity and empathy; others expressed skepticism.
“Putin’s Russia is a far-right imperialist and terrorist state that deserves all the humiliation brought to it. But that strikes me as very strange. I mean the author’s decision, but… no book should be set in historical Russia right now?” Writer and critic Lincoln Michel said on Twitter. “A novel about people who resist the USSR? Huh?”
“I fully respect an author’s right to voluntarily withdraw his own title from publication, but that strikes me as an absurd over-correction, and I’m amazed it was even necessary,” says author and journalist Otegha Uwagba wrote.
“It presents a kind of logical puzzle,” wrote Keith Gessen, a Russian-born journalist and novelist, via email. “If the book is good and teaches us things about Russia and the Russian past that we didn’t know – why else would you write a book set in Russia if you haven’t tried? – then pulling it is a bad decision. But if the book doesn’t do well and uses Russia, as some American authors have done over the years, as a sort of romantic setting of history and tragedy, then it’s an honorable decision. But without reading the book, it’s impossible to know which one it is.
“In general, however, I have no problem with authors thinking about how their book will be read or what it says politically. Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it doesn’t have ideas or values or doesn’t touch people. I think as a writer you have to believe that it is and that it will be.”
Other authors have faced similar pressure after announcing books about Russia. After Gilbert’s announcement, some Twitter users came forward renewed their pressure about Nora Krug, who will publish a graphic memoir called “Diaries of War” in August, in which she adapts her correspondence with a Ukrainian journalist and a Russian artist, which grew out of a series of comments originally published in the Los Angeles Times were published. The posts accused her of “whitewashing the Russians” and “spreading propaganda” and asked her not to continue with the book. Krug did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gilbert said on social media that she will now turn her attention to other book projects and that anyone who charges for a pre-order will receive a refund.
When asked for comment, she declined to elaborate. A Riverhead representative also declined to comment, but said the novel’s release had been “delayed indefinitely.”
This story has been updated.
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