‘Eat, Pray, Love’ author Elizabeth Gilbert halts new book release after backlash over Russian setting

By Marianne Garvey, CNN

(CNN) — Elizabeth Gilbert has announced that she will halt the release of her next book after facing backlash because the story is set in Russia.

The “Eat, Pray, Love” author says her upcoming novel, titled “The Snow Forest,” has upset Ukrainians because their country is currently at war with Russia. It was set to be released in February 2024.

Gilbert said she needed to listen to her Ukranian readers, who expressed sorrow and disappointment over the story being set in Russia.

“Over the course of this weekend, I have received an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers, expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain, about the fact that I would choose to release a book into the world right now,” Gilbert said Monday in a video she posted to her social media accounts. “I want to say that I have heard these messages and read these messages, and I respect them. As a result, I’m making a course correction, and I’m removing the book from its publication schedule.”

According to Gilbert, the book is “set in the middle of Siberia in the middle of the last century and told the story of a group of individuals who made a decision to remove themselves from society to resist the Soviet government and to try to defend nature against industrialization.”

She added that she believes it is not the time to publish this book.

“I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and who are all continuing to experience grievous and extreme harm,” Gilbert said.

She added that she will focus on other projects for now and that any preorders would be refunded.

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