Julie Burchill’s book, Welcome to the Woke Trials, was to be published by Little, Brown in April of 2021. However, the release of this book about “cancel culture” was ironically canceled after an online scuffle over Twitter with another writer, Ash Sarkar, in which Burchill shared islamophobic statements.
According to BBC, “Sarkar accused Burchill of Islamophobia after the Sunday Telegraph columnist made comments about the age of one of the Prophet Muhammad’s wives.”
“While there is no legal definition of hate speech in the UK, we believe that Julie’s comments on Islam are not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint,” reported Little, Brown. “They crossed a line with regard to race and religion, and that her book has now become inextricably linked with those views.”
After describing Burchill’s comments as “not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint” and claiming that they “crossed a line with regard to race and religion,” Little, Brown will not be publishing Burchill’s Welcome to the Woke Trials; a decision they stated that they did not take lightly.