As word gets out about Yale University Press’ censoring andrefusing to print the Danish Mohammed cartoons in a book about the incident, “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” other authors are rethinking their commitment to having their own work published by that publishing house.
Bravely putting her money where her mouth is, poet and translator Sarah Ruden has “already banned the Press from bidding on further books of mine.”
Although they published her translation of the Aeneid she decided to take this step, she explains in a letter to the editor of the New Criterion, because
This is, first of all, a self-protective move. I don’t think there’s any coffee good enough that I’d enjoy being told over it that my finished, fully edited manuscript is going to be neutered because of a report I’m not allowed to see without swearing secrecy. Since I write about politics and religion, such a scene is a likely danger for me. (snip) Yale Press, after breaking a crucial relationship of trust with an author’s mind and work, should be called a lickspittle of fanatics and forfeit any respect or consideration from other authors.
It will be interesting to see if other authors follow her example. Or if they decide to continue with Yale University Press, their justification for doing so.
