Elizabeth Gilbert faces backlash and withdraws new Russia-set novel.

Elizabeth Gilbert has withdrawn her forthcoming novel, The Snow Forest, from publication after receiving criticism for its Russian setting. The author has asked her publishers at Penguin Random House to withdraw the book, citing an “enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers, expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment and pain” about her choice of location. The decision has sparked a debate over the place that Russian culture should have in the contemporary sphere of creative production, with some calling it “wrong-headed” to curtail artistic work because of military conflict.