Posted on January 30, 2020 at 9:30 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Jeanine Cummins is officially no longer touring to promote American Dirt.

Flatiron Books announced that the tour was canceled because “based on specific threats to booksellers and the author, we believe there exists real peril to their safety.”

Flatiron President Bob Miller did say in the statement that the publisher would organize a series of town-hall events in which Cummins could have a conversation with her detractors.

And he also acknowledged that the controversy has ”exposed deep inadequacies" in how the publisher addresses diversity and representation, according to CNN.

Critics have argued that Cummins did not research the experiences of Mexican migrants well enough, that it’s an example of “trauma fetishization,” and that it leans too heavily on other writers’ work.

Additionally, they argue, publishers chose to release and promote Cummins — who described herself as white in 2015 but Latinx in 2019 — rather than any number of Latinx authors who have written more accurately and empathetically on the same subject.

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Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Diversity, Scandal

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