WHAT is literature’s purpose and should it be different in times of war? I was left wondering about this after reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s decision to postpone the publication of her novel The Snow Forest “out of respect” for her Ukrainian readers who expressed their disappointment that her book was set in Russia. Although the book was set to be released in February 2024, reviewers left one-star reviews on Goodreads, having read only the description about it being set in 1930s Russia.

The Snow Forest is a historical novel based loosely on the Lykov family, Russian Christian fundamentalists who moved to a remote part of Siberia to avoid religious persecution. They lived in isolation from the 1930s to 1970s when they were discovered by a group of geologists. Gilbert said she was inspired by their story during the pandemic, her period of isolation.

“It is not the time for this book to be published,” Gilbert said in a video statement she published on Instagram a few days after announcing the publication of The Snow Forest. “And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced, and are all continuing to experience, grievous and extreme harm.”

Essentially, she cancelled herself.

What is literature for in times of conflict?

I wonder if she’d have done this if her story was set in Palestine, or Kashmir, or Xinjiang or any other conflict-riddled territory.

Gilbert is arguably most known for Eat Pray Love — a memoir cum self-help book cum travelogue, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 187 weeks. She has laid open her life bare for readers, so I can understand why she’d feel like she owes them something. But she has received a lot of censure from them.

She has also been criticised for being bullied into postponing her novel and how such actions pose a threat to freedom of speech. When will it be OK to publish The Snow Forest: when the war is ‘over’ or will Ukrainian readers — how do you quantify this — decide this?

I wonder if her act of self-cancellation is an act of boycott and non-violent resistance that has often led to success — albeit at painful costs: non-violent protests in the subcontinent to British rule, sanctions against apartheid in South Africa and the BDS movement against Israeli occupation of Palestine.

That was then and it was collective. Today, it is easier to organise on the internet, as we saw with the case of the Ukrainian reviewers on Goodreads. Protest takes different forms — be it street art, music, scathing journalism, or diaspora in India standing up for WSJ reporter Sabrina Siddiqi who faced a torrent of abuse from Modi supporters after she asked the Indian prime minister about human rights abuses at a press conference in D.C.

I return to the question: what is literature for in times of conflict? Kate Malby in I News offered a possible answer: “If literature is not about the cultivation of human empathy, it is nothing.”

History teaches us how aggressors attempt to wipe out their victims’ culture and identity in wars. Putin is no exception. But as many have pointed out, Ukrainians are doing the same in their attempt to erase Russia. Malby writes how Ukrainian writers are refusing to share space with Russian dissident writers like Mikhail Shishkin who is in exile because of his open criticism of Putin. I’m not questioning calls to boycott Russian music productions, art, literature but to ask who joins in those calls, and when they do, are they endorsing one group’s nationalistic endeavours?

Socialists have noted how support for the Ukrainian war effort comes from a group “whose rabid hatred of Russia is historically rooted in Cold War anti-communism” and that Russia won’t be forgiven for its socialist, Bolshevist ties. Without such questions that allow for reflections, I fear we’re headed to an era of book burning. (We’re already living in an era of book bans.)

Nationalism is problematic especially when myths are peddled as fact to legitimise policies and power. Writers — fiction and non-fiction — have an important role to play in challenging myths, lies and various groups’ assertions. I believe that is art’s purpose. The anger at the atrocities of war should be redirected at corporations and industries that support those efforts, not artists who set their novels in, this case, Russia.

Journalists challenge nationalist, military, hyper religious narratives every day in Pakistan, often at great cost. But many also practise self-censorship out of fear. Soon they may be joined by artists who will feel they have to create for popularity rather than purpose. Literature and art should not be weaponised. You may not want to read Gilbert’s new book but that should be your choice, not one made for you by a mob.

The writer researches newsroom culture in Pakistan.

Twitter: @LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2023