Author Elizabeth Gilbert attends the the world premiere of ‘Eat Pray Love’ at the Ziegfeld Theatre.
AP Photo/Evan Agostini
Elizabeth Gilbert set her latest novel, “The Snow Forest” in Soviet Russia.
But after receiving an outpouring of criticism from Ukrainian readers she decided not to publish it.
“It is not the time for this book to be published,” she said in a Twitter video Monday.
The best-selling author behind the zeitgeist novel “Eat, Pray, Love” is withdrawing her latest work after realizing that its fictional location in Russia may be inappropriate given the country’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.
Elizabeth Gilbert told her fans Monday on Twitter that now “is not the time” for her book, “The Snow Forest,” to be published. She asked her publisher, Penguin Random House, to withdraw the novel’s release in February 2024 — close to the war’s second anniversary.
“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 53-year-old author said.
Gilbert’s best-selling memoir “Eat, Pray, Love,” about finding love and wanderlust in midlife, was made into a 2010 blockbuster starring Julia Roberts. Though it sold millions of copies, critics labeled it “priv-lit,” saying Gilbert could only embark on her spiritual journey around the world because she had the money to do so.
After announcing “The Snow Forest,” she said in her Twitter announcement she received an outpouring of Ukrainian readers “expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment, and pain about the fact that I would choose to release a book into the world right now — any book, no matter what the subject of it is — that is set in Russia.”
The book, which is no longer available for pre-order on Amazon, is about a group of people in Siberia who “remove themselves from society to resist the Soviet government and try to defend nature against industrialization,” Gilbert said in her Twitter video.
It was bombed with one-star reviews on the book site GoodReads (“Really? ‘Perfect’ time to promote ‘mystic russian soul,’ russia and church when its are committing genocide,” a top comment read.) Readers also took to social media to reach Gilbert and urge her to reconsider publishing the book.
Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, did not respond to Insider’s request for comment on behalf of the publishing company or Gilbert. A rep for Riverhead told The New York Times that the book’s publishing is delayed indefinitely, and there hasn’t been a decision about whether Gilbert will revise the book and release it later.
The decision struck some as drastic. The writer’s group PEN America told The Wall Street Journal the decision to withhold a fictional novel for military reasons is “wrongheaded.”
Commenters flocked to Gilbert’s Instagram account to object to her announcement, with one fan writing, “for Russian people it could have been a very important book. Indeed, an example of how to resist the government when you do not agree, when you want to change something and go through the fear of being punished would be very useful.”