Posted on 08/07/2008 6:14:48 PM PDT by flyfree
...the company has decided not to publish Sherry Jones’ historical novel “The Jewel of Medina” about Mohammed’s child bride Aisha. The book was part of a $100,000 two-book contract with the author.
Shame on Random House! This act of abject cowardice and de facto censorship is one of the most disgraceful incidents I can think of in the history of American publishing. As Asra Q. Nomani writes in the WSJ: Random House feared the book would become a new “Satanic Verses,” the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book’s Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones’s novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it “disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now.” He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”
The “credible” source was one Denise Spellberg, a University of Texas academic who, on receipt of Jones’ galleys, started tattling like a six-year old to Muslims Spellberg felt would be angry with the work. Perry and his cronies simply caved in. That the publishers reference the “Satanic Verses” in their defence is yet more despicable. In the early 1990s, when I was president of West Coast Branch of PEN, we did everything in our power to defend Rushdie against the attempts to suppress his freedom of speech. Random House does nothing for its own authors. The natural conclusion of their behavior in this instance is that nothing critical of Islam could ever be written.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Why do we have the 1st Amendment!!!!
Use it or lose it!
that sums it up nicely.
cowards
Sadly, I cannot.
All I can say is that it's long past time that these thugs started being paid back in kind.
L
She clearly wants to promote Islamic victimization of women.
I didn’t realize this woman had such a track record. Thanks for posting. Is she a Muslim convert herself?
It’s not unusual for liberals to act like innocent 6 year olds to muslims and what not. It’s part of the wasting psyche and inherent fraud... much like pedophiles calling themselves children. I’m not sure if it’s a “Gollum way” to deceive others into being embraced despite being despicable or if another one of their OCD wasting behavior invite, putting on a pedestal their muslims helpers, asking for being sacrificed for their sakes.
I’d say she’s a Postmodernist Gender Bender of the most fashionable kind. They always gravitate to the bottom in any area.
I see she was at Columbia. I wonder if she studied with Edward Said?
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