Controversial Jewel of Medina Book To Be Published In October
According to The Guardian
British independent publisher Gibson Square has bought Sherry Jones’s controversial novel about the child bride of Muhammad, which was dropped by Random House US following warnings that it could incite acts of violence from radical Muslims. Jones’s The Jewel of Medina was also pulled from bookshops in Serbia last month after pressure from an Islamic group.
Gibson Square, which has previously published provocative works including Alexander Litvinenko’s Blowing up Russia and House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, paid what it described as a “compelling” advance to acquire The Jewel of Medina. It will publish it in October in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
“In an open society there has to be open access to literary works, regardless of fear,” said Gibson Square publisher Martin Rynja. “As an independent publishing company, we feel strongly that we should not be afraid of the consequences of debate. If a novel of quality and skill that casts light on a beautiful subject we know too little of in the West, but have a genuine interest in, cannot be published here, it would truly mean that the clock has been turned back to the dark ages. The Jewel of Medina has become an important barometer of our time.”
Random House was told by security experts and academics that the novel, for which it paid a $100,000 advance, was potentially more incendiary than both Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses and the Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad. Random House said at the time that it decided not to publish the title “for the safety of the author, employees of Random House Inc, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the book”. The publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 saw attempts made on the lives of Rushdie’s Italian and Norwegian publishers, while the Japanese translator of the book was killed.
Rynja said that as a small publisher, Gibson Square would be more capable of handling any controversy. “With a book that is controversial – and we’ve done a number – it is incredibly important that it is looked at from all sides. That is very difficult for a large publisher to do as they are looking at 200 titles a month so a controversial one is just one in the mix.”
He said that he hoped that once people read the novel in its entirety there would be a “healthy discussion” about its content. “[Jones has] done very careful and detailed research for the novel – she’s writing about this love story which even after 1,400 years we don’t know much about.”
Rynja struck the deal with Jones’s agent Natasha Kern, who has also sold the novel to Editora Record in Brazil and is in discussions with small Danish publisher Trykkefrihedsselskabets Library (Free Speech Library).
Kern said that she and Jones decided on Gibson Square because they wanted a publisher who would commit to the novel and Jones’s career, “as well as an editor and publisher who are passionate about bringing The Jewel of Medina to widest possible group of readers. We wanted to publish this book as quickly as possible so that all those who are interested can read the book and discover what a wonderful and inspiring love story Sherry has written.”
Gibson Square also publishes John McCain, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Naomi Klein, Richard Dawkins and AN Wilson.
You can read the first chapter here
I Didn’t Kill The Jewel of Medina
A Follow up to the story about The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones. Denise Spellberg has responded in the Wall Street Journal with the following letter:
I Didn’t Kill ‘The Jewel of Medina’
August 9, 2008; Page A10
Asra Q. Nomani’s “You Still Can’t Write About Muhammad” (op-ed, Aug. 6) falsely asserts that I am the “instigator” of the Random House Press decision not to publish a novel about the Prophet’s wife titled, “The Jewel of Medina.” I never had this power, nor did I single-handedly stop the book’s publication. Random House made its final decision based on the advice of other scholars, conveniently not named in the article, and based ultimately on its determination of corporate interests.
As a historian invited to “comment” on the book by its Random House editor at the author’s express request, I objected strenuously to the claim that “The Jewel of Medina” was “extensively researched,” as stated on the book jacket. As an expert on Aisha’s life, I felt it was my professional responsibility to counter this novel’s fallacious representation of a very real woman’s life. The author and the press brought me into a process, and I used my scholarly expertise to assess the novel. It was in that same professional capacity that I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel’s potential to provoke anger among some Muslims.
There is a long history of anti-Islamic polemic that uses sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith. This novel follows in that oft-trodden path, one first pioneered in medieval Christian writings. The novel provides no new reading of Aisha’s life, but actually expands upon provocative themes regarding Muhammad’s wives first found in an earlier novel by Salman Rushdie, “The Satanic Verses,” which I teach. I do not espouse censorship of any kind, but I do value my right to critique those who abuse the past without regard for its richness or resonance in the present.
The combination of sex and violence sells novels. When combined with falsification of the Islamic past, it exploits Americans who know nothing about Aisha or her seventh-century world and counts on stirring up controversy to increase sales. If Ms. Nomani and readers of the Journal wish to allow literature to “move civilization forward,” then they should read a novel that gets history right.
Denise A. Spellberg
Assoc. Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Texas at Austin
Controversy Surrounding The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones
Update, September 3rd : A new Publisher has been named. Click here to read about it
There is a controversy bouncing around the internet about the book deal being cancelled for The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones. I thought I would provide a link to the first chapter that was published on SmartBitchesTrashyBooks. There is also a great discussion going on there. You can click here to read the first chapter and you can click here to read the discussion on the website. The following was a post from Publishers Lunch today about the controversy. You can read Sherry Jones responses at her website here.
Random House Group deputy publisher Tom Perry says that the company received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” They postponed publication “for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.” Last month a termination agreement was executed so that agent Natasha Kern could shop the book to other publishers.
The column attributes the beginning of the protests to associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin Denise Spellberg, who says “You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.” Spellberg, after reviewing a galley sent for review and endorsement, spoke with someone who runs an e-mail list; that alert was expanded upon by a blogger, which led to someone posting as Ali Hemani iterating a seven-point strategy to make sure “the writer withdraws this book from the stores and apologise [sic] all the muslims across the world.”
After the posting, Spellberg (who publishes with Knopf) alerted editor Jane Garrett to what she viewed as potential danger: “Denise says it is ‘a declaration of war . . . explosive stuff . . . a national security issue.’ Thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons.” Three weeks later Libby McGuire informed the author and agent the book was postponed indefinitely for “fear of a possible terrorist threat from extremist Muslims” and concern for “the safety and security of the Random House building and employees.”
WSJ
Jones tells us that “because of my termination agreement with Random House, I am prohibited from commenting on the circumstances surrounding that termination.” But from her perspective, “Despite Random House’s statement, I’m not aware of any warnings of possible terrorist attack from any other source than Denise Spellberg. I know that Shahed Amanullah’s email had nothing to do with any of this, because I was the one who discovered it, and the resulting discussion, on the Husaini Youths website.
“Although I’ve been aware from the start that my books might offend some people, I’ve never been afraid of physical harm because of them. I wrote these books because I felt called to write them after researching A’isha for my own purposes. My passion for her story trumps the fear factor. I’ve expected controversy, yes, but never terrorism.”
Separately, Jones writes on her blog that “all I did was try to portray A’isha, Muhammad’s child bride (believed by most historians to have married Muhammad at age nine and consummated the marriage at age 11) in the context of her times.”
As to Spellberg’s charge that the novel is “soft porn,” Jones replies: “There are no sex scenes in this book. The novel, whose bibliography includes 29 scholarly and religious books, is a work of serious historic fiction detailing the origins of Islam through the eyes of the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest wife. It’s a book about women’s relationships and experiences at a time in history when a religion was being founded in the midst of conflict.”
Separately, agent Natasha Kern says that she will have news of foreign rights sales for the book to announce shortly.
Random House supplied us with their full statement to the Wall Street Journal, and deputy publisher Tom Perry “underscore[s] that our decision was not based solely on the opinions of Ms. Spellberg.”
The publisher says that after distributing galleys of the book, they received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.
“We felt an obligation to take these concerns very seriously. We consulted with security experts as well as with scholars of Islam, whom we asked to review the book and offer their assessments of potential reactions.
“We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some. However, a publisher must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House,
booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.” As reported, both parties subsequently agreed to terminate the publishing agreement.
