‘If publishers become afraid, we’re in trouble’: publishing’s cancel culture debate boils over

In the 1960s, Simon & Schuster’s co-founder Max Schuster was facing a dilemma. Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect and armaments minister, had written a memoir providing new insights into the workings of Nazi leadership. As Michael Korda, Schuster’s editor-in-chief, recounted in his memoir Another Life, Schuster knew it would be a huge success. “There is only one problem,” he said, “and it’s this: I do not want to see Albert Speer’s name and mine on the same book.”

In the liberal industry of publishing, the tension that exists between profit and morality is nothing new, whether it’s Schuster turning down Speer (the book was finally published by Macmillan), or the UK government introducing legislation to prevent criminals making money from writing about their crimes.

But the debate over what should be published has reached a fever pitch. Publishing staff who feel uncomfortable about working on certain titles are speaking out more often and more loudly, through open letters and on social media. In April, asked their employer to pull out of a seven-figure book deal with former vice president Mike Pence. Authors, too, have withdrawn titles when their publishers sign writers they disagree with; in 2017 over its decision to publish “alt-right” provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, when it would publish a memoir by his estranged father, Woody Allen. Pankaj Mishra recently revealed he had written to his publisher, Penguin Random House India, to ask it to during the country’s Covid-19 crisis.