The publisher of controversial new novel “American Dirt” has canceled a planned book tour for the author over safety concerns, according to the New York Times.
Flatiron Books, the novel’s publisher, released a statement on Wednesday from president Bob Miller, according to the Times, which said, “Based on specific threats to booksellers and the author, we believe there exists real peril to their safety.”
“American Dirt,” which tells the story of a Mexican mother and her son fleeing for safety to the U.S. border, sparked an unexpected controversy after its release earlier this month. The author, Jeanine Cummins, was given a huge advance for the novel, which has been praised by some prominent authors and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club, according to NPR.
However, since its release, some critics have voiced concerns over what they consider to be stereotypical portrayals of characters, as well as questioned whether Cummins (who is not of Mexican descent) was the right author tell this particular story, NPR reported.
Miller acknowledged in a statement that Flatiron Books was “surprised by the anger that has emerged from members of the Latinx and publishing communities,” according to NPR.
“We made serious mistakes in the way we rolled out the books,” Miller wrote in the statement, according to Variety. “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 our bookseller dinner last May that replicated the book jacket so tastelessly. We can now see how insensitive those and other decisions were, and we regret them.”
Meanwhile, Winfrey shared a video to her Instagram account on Monday, addressing the controversy surrounding the book, according to USA Today.
“It’s clear that we need to have a different kind of conversation about ‘American Dirt’ and we welcome everyone’s thoughts and opinions in our community,” Winfrey wrote on Instagram, adding, “#ReadWithUs.”
While the originally planned book tour has been canceled, Flatiron Books is replacing the canceled events with a series of town halls where Cummins will be able to engage in dialogue with the book’s critics, according to NPR.