A novel canceled by Random House Inc. in May, after warnings from a University of Texas at Austin historian, has found a new publisher in Britain.
London-based Gibson Square Books announced today that it had agreed to publish The Jewel of Medina, which tells of A’isha, the child bride of the Prophet Muhammad.
Random House terminated its contract with the book’s author, Sherry Jones, after Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of history at Texas, warned that the book could spark violent protests like those that followed the 2005 publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Muslim prophet with a bomb in his turban.
Gibson Books, however, seems to relish the controversy and describes the book as “a meticulously researched love story of the Prophet Mohammed.”
“The Jewel of Medina is a perfect fit with Gibson Square’s publishing list of distinguished best sellers that contribute important, well-researched, but controversial points of view and have suffered rejection by other publishers as a result,” the company said in a written statement.
In an e-mail message, Ms. Jones said that the book also would be published in Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Russia, and Spain. A U.S. publisher is expected to be announced next week.
