Eat, Pray, Love writer yanks new Russia-set novel
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Author Elizabeth Gilbert reversed plans to release her novel The Snow Forest, which is set in Russia, following a blizzard of negative publicity.
PHOTOS: NYTIMES, ELIZABETH GILBERT/INSTAGRAM
LOS ANGELES – American author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose multi-million-selling novel Eat, Pray, Love (2006) was made into a Hollywood smash starring Julia Roberts, said on Monday she is shelving her new novel after an outcry because it was set in Russia.
The move illustrates the difficulties that publishers, celebrities, and sporting and artistic bodies have as they try to handle the fallout from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Gilbert announced last week that The Snow Forest would be published in early 2024, but a blizzard of negative publicity forced a reversal.
“I have received an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain about the fact that I would choose to release a book – any book, no matter what the subject of it is – set in Russia,” she said in an Instagram video.
“I’m making a course correction, and I’m removing the book from its publication schedule. I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced, and who are continuing to experience, grievous and extreme harm.”
The novel is set in 1930s Soviet Russia and follows a family trying to resist the authoritarian government.
Despite its distance from modern-day events, readers on the Goodreads website were nearly unanimous in lambasting the choice of subject matter.
“While Ukrainians are dying from Russian terrorists, famous authors are writing books about them and romanticising them,” wrote one of the hundreds of people who left a one-star review.
“Do you write about Russia, romanticise the country while it commits genocide and ecocide in Ukraine? A complete shame. I’m disappointed in you.” wrote another.
New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2022 distanced itself from Russian star Anna Netrebko over her support for President Vladimir Putin.
Russian and Belarusian athletes have been barred from taking part in some sporting competitions under their national flags.
Eat, Pray, Love – stylised without the punctuation when it was made into the 2010 film – tells the story of a journey of self-discovery a middle-aged woman undertakes after a painful divorce. AFP
