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Lionel Shriver

Why do authors have to be ‘moral’? Because their publishing contracts tell them so

19 January 2019

9:00 AM

19 January 2019

9:00 AM

Suppose you’re a writer with a self-destructive proclivity for sticking your neck out. Would you sign a book contract that would be cancelled in the instance of ‘sustained, widespread public condemnation of the author’? Even cautious, congenial writers are working in an era when a bland, self-evident physiological assertion like ‘women don’t have penises’ attracts a school of frenzied piranhas.

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