Viral list classifies authors as Zionist, urging people not to read their work
The viral list categorizes authors by political around Israel. Courtesy of iStock
By Mira Fox May 9, 2024
Have you ever wondered what fantasy author Neil Gaiman’s views on Israel are? Or Zadie Smith’s? Maybe Salman Rushdie?
A helpfully color-coded Google spreadsheet is circulating online, categorizing authors as Zionist (red), pro-Palestinian (blue), or varying shades of unknown: orange, yellow and green, which seem to indicate a progression between leaning Zionist and leaning pro-Palestinian. (All of the above authors were highlighted in orange, designating a Zionist lean.) The list has nearly 500,000 views on X.
“We’ve had a number of authors and publishers email us about it, so it’s definitely making the rounds,” said Naomi Firestone-Teeter, CEO of the Jewish Book Council.
Its creator, who is 24 according to her X bio, links sources for each conclusion next to the author — participation in Gaza fundraisers nearly guarantees a pro-Palestinian classification, while social media posts expressing sympathy for Israel in the wake of Oct. 7 mark them as red; anything that she classes as “both side-y” lands people in, at least, orange. (She has not replied to a request for comment.)
Text in the document urges people to support those who are highlighted in blue. For those highlighted in red — for Zionist — the document suggests that “you do not give them any money (purchasing their books, streaming their shows/movies) or promote their work on any social platforms.” For neutral, the creator recommends “refraining from buying/promoting until more evidence is out.”
Each author gets an explanation: Holly Black, a young adult novelist, was highlighted in green, with: “has previously donated books to Palestinian children, but is working with an Israeli publisher.” True neutral is awarded for actions like: “was asked if they knew about the Gaza evacuation auction and left them on read,” as the note for J. Bengtsson Cake reads. Emily St. John Mandel, author of the acclaimed novel Station Eleven merited a red for: “travels to Israel frequently, talks favorably about it.”
Though the list includes some big name literary figures — Ocean Vuong, Rushdie, James Baldwin (which the list notes is dead but “was pro-Palestine”) — the bulk of the names are authors of young adult, fantasy and romance novels. If you’re looking for, say, Joshua Cohen — who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2022 for The Netanyahus — or Paul Lynch, who won the Booker Prize last year for Prophet Song, you won’t find them.
The list relies almost entirely on social media posts for its conclusions; there is little engagement with or interpretation of the authors’ actual works to draw conclusions, though a note for viral fantasy romance writer Sarah J. Maas says her books have elements of colonialism “without indicating that it is morally wrong.” A few others get demerits for having Israeli characters. Naomi Klein, who criticized Zionism at length in Doppelganger, her newest book, is classed as pro-Palestinian solely due to her participation in a fundraiser for Gaza.
This is not the first dust-up around authors’ political views since Oct. 7. Numerous authors have lost speaking gigs over support for Palestine and awards festivals have been canceled or delayed, including PEN America’s Literary Awards, which was canceled after dozens of authors withdrew their work from consideration due to what they felt was the organization’s insufficient response to the death of journalists and writers in Gaza. (Rushdie’s association with PEN America led to his orange classification.)
Though the list’s creator only has a few hundred followers on X, the post has thousands of bookmarks and retweets. Many responses accuse the spreadsheet of antisemitism, calling it a list of Jews and comparing it to Nazi lists; the majority of the authors listed are not Jewish. Others thanked the creator for doing research to guide their purchasing and reading.
But not all of them were following the spreadsheet’s recommendations. “Perfect if ur looking for some books by Zionist authors! Going to go buy some rn,” read one tweet.
