The 75th US National Book Awards, in a Time of Worry

This year, the United States’ National Book Awards ceremony comes amid Trumpian threats of legal action against authors and journalists.

National Book Award trophies. Image: National Book Foundation, Beowulf Sheehan

Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Charges of ‘Defamation’

As many in the United States’ trade book publishing industry gather tonight (November 20) for the 75th-anniversary National Book Awards ceremony, this annual fund-raising gala takes place just days after Donald Trump has threatened to sue Penguin Random House and The New York Times for billions of dollars.

First brought to Publishing Perspectives‘ attention by Thursday’s (November 14) article from Lachlan Cartright in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), the threat arrived about a week ahead of the election in the form of a letter, reviewed by CJR and written to attorneys for PRH and the Times, as Cartright writes, “over allegedly ‘false and defamatory statements’ contained in articles written by Times journalists Peter Baker, Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Michael S. Schmidt.”

Cartwright’s article is helpful for its short catalogue of the writings the letter refers to. “It singles out two stories co-authored by Buettner and Craig,” he writes, “that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success [Penguin Random House], released on September 17.

“It also highlighted an October 20 Times story headlined ‘For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment’ by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, ‘As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.’”

At Publishers Weekly on November 15, John Maher reminds readers of several efforts at suppression from Trump in his first term, “when,” as Maher writes, “he regularly sued publishing houses that released books critical of him or his administration.”

These included, of course, Trump’s 2018 effort to stop the release and sales of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House—the first of the Trump-critical in-term books and a key talking point at the time. And, as Maher adds, there were actions threatened against Simon & Schuster at the time.

In recent seasons, the “trinity of freedoms” essential to literature and other creative forms, have been widely discussed in world publishing circles, especially through the leadership of the Geneva-based International Publishers Association (IPA). That trinity comprises the freedom to publish, the freedom to read, and freedom of expression, all threatened in various parts of the world.

A constant in places facing and/or discussing the pressure on these freedoms is the tendency toward self-censorship, in which creative people pull back for fear of reprisals from hostile parties. Since Trump’s tendency to try to move against writings isn’t totally new—though the moves revealed by CJR have started comparatively early in this case—members of the publishing industry may be confronting these kinds of actions earlier than expected in a second Trump administration.

But Penguin Random House worldwide CEO Nihar Malaviya spoke movingly with Publishing Perspectives at this year’s Frankfurter Buchmesse in a private interview about his zeal for the freedom to read. Malaviya has led PRH to challenge multiple book-banning dynamics in the States.

And PEN America on November 15 lost no time in responding to the CJR story, with Tim Richardson, the journalism and disinformation lead at PEN, saying: “President-elect Donald Trump’s legal threats mark an ominous start to his transition to the White House, signaling his intent to escalate attacks on journalism and publishing. While The New York Times and Penguin Random House may have the resources to defend themselves against these clearly frivolous claims, smaller news outlets and publishers do not and may be forced to censor themselves rather than risk critical coverage of Trump.

“That is the point. These threats aren’t about stopping false reporting or even winning cases that are brought—they’re about intimidating journalists, writers, and publishers into self-censorship. The worrisome results will be less accountability for our elected leaders and a less informed public.”

While tonight’s celebrations of authors’ work and the National Book Awards program’s 75 years will be full of high spirits, of course, and rightly so, some in the room may also be thinking of the potential backdrop of potential challenges and intimidation in months and years to come in the American market. The communication reviewed by the Columbia Journalism Review is something adding a new textural component for book publishing’s communities to think and talk about.

More from Publishing Perspectives on the freedom to publish and other related freedoms is here, and more on censorship is here. Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.