{"id":1574,"date":"2021-06-14T16:13:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T20:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/?p=1574"},"modified":"2021-06-14T17:36:17","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T21:36:17","slug":"fierce-and-burning-questions-litbits-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/fierce-and-burning-questions-litbits-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Fierce and Burning Questions\u2014LitBits #13"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Jeanette Winterson, author of 28 works of fiction including\u00a0<em>Sexing the Cherry<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Lighthousekeeping<\/em><i>,<\/i>\u00a0recently set fire to a pile of her newly republished books.<\/p>\n<h2><!--more--><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-8-1.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1586\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-8-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"336\" height=\"226\" \/><\/a>In a tweet, she explained, \u201cAbsolutely hated the cosy little domestic blurbs on my new covers. Turned me into wimmins fiction of the worst kind! Nothing playful or strange or the ahead of time stuff that\u2019s in there. So I set them on fire.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\">Winterson, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2006, wrote her first novel, <em>Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit<\/em> at 23, and in the 35 years since, she has consistently explored love, gender, and sexual identity with ground-breaking brilliance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\">Among the burned books were <em>The Passion, Written on the Body,<\/em> and <em>The Powerbook.<\/em> In a <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2021\/jun\/04\/jeanette-winterson-burns-her-own-books-in-outrage-at-cosy-little-blurbs\">Guardian <\/a><\/em>interview, she said: \u201cEach of those books was doing something different at the time, both with form and content. The blurbs had none of this and turned the books into the tame and the obvious.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Cancel Culture or Ethical Publishing?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p13\"><span class=\"s1\">Publishing house staff in England, the US, and Canada are refusing to work on books they consider hateful. Such crises of conscience are not new. In the 1960s, Max Schuster, co-founder of Simon &amp; Schuster, struggled over a memoir by Nazi Albert Speer that he knew would be a bestseller and valuable for its revelations about the workings of fascism. \u201cThere is only one problem,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not want to see Albert Speer\u2019s name and mine on the same book.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p13\"><span class=\"s1\"> In 2017, Roxanne Gay, author of <em>Bad Feminist<\/em> and <em>D<a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-5-1.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1582 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-5-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" \/><\/a>ifficult Women<\/em>, pulled out of a book deal with S&amp;S when they decided to publish a book by alt-right Milo Yiannopooulos. Ronan Farrow, a best-selling investigative author, did the same when Hachette announced it would published Woody Allen\u2019s memoir. Both publishers bowed to the pressure. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p13\"><span class=\"s1\">Penguin Random House Canada, however, was deaf to staff protests and went ahead and published <em>Beyond Order<\/em> by right-wing psychologist Jordan Peterson. And despite a petition signed by 200<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> staff <\/span>and some 3,500 supporters, Simon &amp; Schuster refused to sever a seven-figure book deal with former vice president Mike Pence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p13\"><span class=\"s1\">Is this censorship? Or workers leading a fight for ethics over profits?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p13\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cPeople aren\u2019t having these kinds of conflicts over simple differences of political opinion, as you might assume from listening to the debate on it,\u201d Olivia Beattie told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2021\/jun\/03\/if-publishers-become-afraid-were-in-trouble-publishings-cancel-culture-debate-boils-over\"><em>The Guardian<\/em><\/a>. Beattie is editorial director of Biteback, a political publisher. \u201cNobody\u2019s refusing to work on a book because it doesn\u2019t fit with their party affiliation: what\u2019s been at stake has virtually always been a question of whether the book or the author is responsible for inciting prejudice against already marginalized and oppressed minorities.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p15\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2021\/jun\/08\/elin-hilderbrand-asks-for-anne-frank-reference-to-be-cut-from-novel-after-complaints\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Frank Apology<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\">Bestselling romance author Elin Hilderbrand has asked her publisher to remove a reference to Anne Frank from her latest novel, apologizing to readers for including what she described as an \u201coffensive and tasteless\u201d passage in the book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\"><em>Golden Girl<\/em>, set in Nantucket, tells the story of author and mother-of-three Vivian, who is killed in a car accident and watches\u00a0<\/span>from the Beyond as her family\u2019s life carries on. In one passage, Vivian, as a child, plans to stay in her friend\u2019s attic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201c\u2018You\u2019re suggesting I\u00a0<i>hide\u00a0<\/i>here all summer?\u2019 Vivi asks. \u2018Like \u2026 like\u00a0<i>Anne Frank?<\/i>\u2019 This makes them both laugh \u2013 but is it really funny, and is Vivi so far off base?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p11\"><span class=\"s1\">When readers on Instagram criticized the passage as \u201ccasual antisemitism,\u201d Hilderbrand at first tried to explain her intention, then posted a formal apology. \u201cIt was meant as hyperbole but was a poor choice, that was offensive and tasteless\u2026I always strive to write in good faith.\u201d<\/span><span class=\"s1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p13\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.annebronte.org\/2021\/06\/06\/the-sothebys-auction-of-bronte-treasures\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Lost Library<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p13\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hon-EB-ms-1-768x609-1.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1581 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hon-EB-ms-1-768x609-1-300x238.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"166\" height=\"132\" srcset=\"https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hon-EB-ms-1-768x609-1-300x238.jpg 300w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hon-EB-ms-1-768x609-1-600x476.jpg 600w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/hon-EB-ms-1-768x609-1.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 166px) 100vw, 166px\" \/><\/a>An \u201cincredibly rare\u201d handwritten manuscript of Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s poems, with pencil corrections by her sister Charlotte, is going up for auction as part of a \u201clost library\u201d that disappeared<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>for nearly a century.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1587\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/mw130416-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/mw130416-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/mw130416.jpg 211w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p17\"><span class=\"s3\">Emily Bront\u00eb wrote <em>Wuthering Heights<\/em><i>,<\/i> then died, leaving little behind, neither manuscripts, journals, nor letters. Charlotte describes finding the poems a few years before Emily&#8217;s death: \u201c<\/span><span class=\"s1\">I accidentally lighted on a manuscript volume of verse in my sister Emily\u2019s handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me\u2014a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear, they had also a peculiar music\u2014wild, melancholy, and elevating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p17\"><span class=\"s1\">Emily\u2019s poems and scores of other Bront\u00eb manuscripts were collected in the Hornesfield Library, created by mill owners William and Alfred Laws, who were Bront\u00eb enthusiasts. When the last Law died in 1939, the library vanished and only recently came to light. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p20\"><span class=\"s4\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bronte.org.uk\/whats-on\/news\/242\/save-the-honresfeld-library\">Bront\u00eb Society<\/a> has mounted a campaign to urge the British government to save the collection for the public. \u201c<\/span><span class=\"s1\">Retained as a coherent collection,\u201d the campaign argues, \u201c it will repay scholarly investigation and provide enjoyment for all lovers of literature for the next 100 years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p22\"><span class=\"s1\">Alas, the Hornesfield Library will most likely be split up amongst private collectors. Sotheby\u2019s values Emily\u2019s manuscript of 29 poems alone at between $1,370,000 and $2 million CAD. The \u201cLost Library\u201d will be offered in three auctions at Sotheby\u2019s, starting July 13, with exhibitions of the items planned in London, New York and Edinburgh.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Fierce Determination, Real Truth<\/b><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p24\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Zimbabwe<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p24\"><span class=\"s1\"> <a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-4-2.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1579 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images-4-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"140\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1580 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11-279x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11-279x300.jpg 279w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11-953x1024.jpg 953w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11-768x826.jpg 768w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11-600x645.jpg 600w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tsitsi_Dangarembga_2006-11.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/a>Tsitsi Dangarembga, the Booker-shortlisted Zimbabwean writer who was arrested last year in Harare while protesting against corruption, has been awarded the PEN Pinter prize, praised for her \u201cability to capture and communicate vital truths even amidst times of upheaval\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p24\"><span class=\"s1\">The prize is awarded in memory of Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and goes to a writer of \u201coutstanding literary merit\u201d who, in the words of Pinter, shows a \u201cfierce intellectual determination &#8230; to define the real truth of our lives and our societies\u201d. Previous winners include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Margaret Atwood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p27\"><span class=\"s1\">Dangarembga is author of <em>Nervous Conditions<\/em>, written at 25, and which Doris Lessing described as one of the most important novels of the 20th century. The third part of her trilogy set in postcolonial Zimbabwe\u2014<em>This Mournable Body<\/em>\u2014was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p27\"><span class=\"s1\">Dangarembga has been charged with intention to incite public violence. PEN and other free speech organizations and writers are campaigning for the charges to be dropped.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p27\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Canada<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p29\"><span class=\"s2\"><i><a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/michelle-good-five-little-indians-book.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1577 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/michelle-good-five-little-indians-book-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/michelle-good-five-little-indians-book-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/michelle-good-five-little-indians-book-768x543.jpg 768w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/michelle-good-five-little-indians-book-600x424.jpg 600w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/michelle-good-five-little-indians-book.jpg 804w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 249px) 100vw, 249px\" \/><\/a><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s2\"><em>Five Little Indians<\/em>, by Michelle Good <\/span><span class=\"s1\">won both the Amazon First Novel Award &amp; the Governor General\u2019s Award in recent weeks. Good&#8217;s first novel was also shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller and the Atwood Gibson Writers\u2019 Trust Fiction Prize, and is up for an Indigenous Voices award on June 21 and both the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes, which will be announced in the fall. <\/span><span class=\"s6\">Prospero Pictures and Cree Metis writer Shannon Masters are already working on turning the novel into a limited TV series.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p31\"><span class=\"s2\"><em>Five Little Indians<\/em> tells the story of<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> f<\/span><\/span><span class=\"s1\">ive survivors of Canada\u2019s Indigenous residential schools system after they endured years of detention, suffering, and forced assimilation. \u201cThis story must be told in every way we can,\u201d says Good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p32\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>From My Desk<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_1575\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578.jpg\" rel=\"wpdevart_lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1575\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1575\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578-1024x760.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578-768x570.jpg 768w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578-600x445.jpg 600w, https:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/VUalOGXRjclFEj2YyPgA_thumb_b578.jpg 1029w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1575\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Myself with the newest reader in our family, Luther Wayne Naish.<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p32\"><span class=\"s1\">Here at home, I have just finished writing the catalogue copy for <em>Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Birds of Pimisi Bay<\/em><i>, <\/i>which will be released in April 2022, the 30th anniversary of Louise\u2019s death. The owners of Louise\u2019s Loghouse Nest have offered to host a launch of <em>Woman, Watching<\/em><i>.<\/i> Stay tuned for details!<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p32\"><span class=\"s1\">And this spring is the 25th anniversary of the release of <em>The Convict Lover<\/em>, which has been<\/span> continuously in print since it was published in 1996. Recently, I visited the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.projectbookmarkcanada.ca\/18-the-convict-lover\">Project Bookmark<\/a> plaque erected in what was once the stone quarry where the convicts of the Penitentiary of Portsmouth (aka Kingston Penitentiary) did hard time. The penitentiary is silent\u2014inmates transferred, cells decommissioned, tourists barred by Covid\u2014but the plaque is a moving reminder of the men who hollowed out the lovely park where the marker now stands.<\/p>\n<p>Book sales are booming in these Covid times. My local independent is run off its feet, and in the US, online book <span class=\"s1\">sales increased by 295%\u2014excluding Amazon purchases. May your summer bloom, too, with fierce and fiery reads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1365\" src=\"http:\/\/merilynsimonds.com\/books-unpacked-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/signature2.png\" alt=\"Merilyn's signature\" width=\"125\" height=\"114\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Jeanette Winterson, author of 28 works of fiction including\u00a0Sexing the Cherry\u00a0and\u00a0Lighthousekeeping,\u00a0recently set fire to a pile of her newly republished books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[287,284,289,286,285,288],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-in-the-news-litbits","tag-emily-bronte","tag-jeanette-winterson","tag-michelle-good","tag-ronan-farrow","tag-roxanne-gay","tag-tsitsi-dangarembga","invicta_simple_style_entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - 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