【1995 Archives】

Oprah's American Dirtcontroversy isn't ending anytime soon.

On Sunday995 Archives the literary tastemaker finally responded to criticism that her new book club selection, American Dirt, is poorly written and riddled with stereotypes and inaccuracies. Jeanine Cummins' novel, which follows a middle-class Mexican woman and her son as they flee a drug cartel, had been hyped as a "Grapes of Wrath for our times," but critics argued that its cartoonish portrayal of an immigrant's plight would do more harm than good.

Oprah promised to have "a deeper, more substantive discussion" about the novel in a forthcoming episode of her Apple TV+ show.

If Oprah thought that would quiet the outrage, she was wrong. In an open letter published Wednesday on the website Literary Hub, 83 authors urged Oprah to reconsider American Dirt as an official Oprah's Book Club selection. That number has since grown to more than 100 writers.

"This is not a letter calling for silencing, nor censoring," the authors wrote. "But in a time of widespread misinformation, fearmongering, and white-supremacist propaganda related to immigration and to our border, in a time when adults and children are dying in US immigration cages, we believe that a novel blundering so badly in its depiction of marginalized, oppressed people should not be lifted up."

"We are asking only that you remove the influential imprimatur of Oprah’s Book Club, as you have in the past upon learning that a book you’d championed wasn’t what it first seemed to be."

In 2006, Oprah removed the book A Million Little Pieces from her club when it became clear that the author, James Frey, had fabricated some parts the memoir.

The letter's signatories include Tommy Orange, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist novel There There, Valeria Luiselli, MacArthur "genius" grant recipient and author of the novel Lost Children Archive, Jose Antonio Vargas, founder of the immigrant advocacy nonprofit Define American and author of Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, and Myriam Gurba, a vocal critic of American Dirt and author of the memoir Mean.

By Wednesday afternoon, hours after the signed letter was published, American Dirt's publisher Flatiron Books announced it had canceled Cummins' book tour due to "concerns about safety." Activists and critics had previously shared plans online to attend Cummins' events to question her about the book's depiction of immigrants and Mexican culture, among other topics.

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Since the controversy over American Dirt erupted last week, Latinx authors have used the hashtag #DignidadLiteraria as a way of drawing attention to a "community of 60 million left off of bookshelves and out of the national dialogue." The debate has also focused on the lack of diversity in the publishing industry, which Latinx authors cite as a key reason why American Dirtbecame a literary juggernaut despite its many flaws.

The letter's signatories emphasized that while it's possible for authors to write "outside" of their own experiences, such writers have a "duty to imagine well, responsibly, and with complexity."

"This letter is not written to attack Cummins, a fellow writer whose intentions we can’t know," they wrote. "But good intentions do not make good literature, particularly not when the execution is so faulty, and the outcome so harmful."

UPDATE: Jan. 29, 2020, 1:38 p.m. PST This story was updated to include the announcement that Flatiron Books had canceled the American Dirtbook tour.

UPDATE: Jan. 30, 2020, 8:09 a.m. PST This story was updated to reflect the increased number of writers who signed the letter to Oprah.