Last week, the last of the three men accused of firebombing the offices of Gibson Square, the British publisher that had been prepared to publish Sherry Jones‘s The Jewel of Medina, was convicted of “conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life”; the other two men had already pled guilty to the charges. The firebombing was widely interpreted as an act of retaliation against Gibson Square for agreeing to publish a novel about the life of A’isha, the youngest wife of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
But last October’s firebombing took place before the book was actually published, and it effectively ended Gibson Square’s interest in bringing the novel out for British readers, so that, as Ed West notes in The Telegraph, “the book is now effectively banned… not by Government order but by religious bullies.”
West quotes Jones’ reaction to the verdict: “Although the extremists lost in court,” she writes, “they have apparently won where it really counts—in the UK’s book stores.” She also reveals that, after Gibson Square was apparently spooked out of its deal with her, world English rights to The Jewel of Medina were awarded to her American publisher, Beaufort Books—and that Beaufort took the novel to London last month but had no luck finding a distributor willing to bring it to UK bookshelves. The search continues, but for now, “the ‘thugs’ have accomplished their task,” Jones laments, “and freedom of speech, the first freedom to go when fascism gets a foothold, has taken a blow in the western world.”