After a widespread online outrage against the novel “American Dirt”, the author Jeanine Cummins and her publisher Flatiron Books have decided against the scheduled author tour intended to promote the book.
“Based on specific threats to booksellers and the author, we believe there exists real peril to their safety,” wrote the president and publisher of Flatiron Bob Miller after a series of online threats.
Furthermore, addressing the controversy around the book, Miller said that the discussions about the novel have “exposed deep inadequacies” concerning how the publisher tends to address representation and diversity.
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The book, chosen by Oprah for her Apple TV book club, centers around a Mexican woman and her son who decide to flee to the US to escape from drug cartel violence.
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The book was criticized by many who believe that the book is pandering to stereotypes and harsh anger towards the author can be seen online, along with accusations of racism.
“Unfortunately, our concerns about safety have led us to the difficult decision to cancel the book tour,” said Miller.
“We made serious mistakes in the way we rolled out the books. We should never have claimed that it was a novel that defined the immigrant experience; we should not have said that Jeanine’s husband was an undocumented immigrant while not specifying that he was from Ireland; we should not have had a centerpiece at a bookseller last May that replicated the book jacket so tastelessly. We can now see how insensitive those and other decisions were, and we regret them,” the statement continued.
