Bestselling Novelist Sally Rooney Chooses Designated Terrorist Organization Over British Book Sales

If you are a British reader who has been a fan of the bestselling Irish author Sally Rooney, then it is time to be very anxious indeed. Ms. Rooney, whose novels include “Normal People” — filmed for British television with Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones in star-making roles — and “Conversations with Friends,” has announced that her books will no longer be sold in bookstores in Britain, on the grounds that the group Palestine Action, which she has pledged support to, has been proscribed as a terrorist organization since last year. With somewhat tortuous logic, Sally Rooney issued a statement suggesting that “In July 2025, the direct-action protest group Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organization in the UK. The following month, I wrote an opinion piece expressing my intention to go on supporting Palestine Action, which is not a proscribed or otherwise prohibited group here in the Republic of Ireland.” After she made it clear that this support would continue, and that she would be using money that she has received from sales of her works to fund the group, she said, “the fulfillment of contracts to publish my work in the UK could now constitute a serious criminal offence.” The result of this extraordinary series of events is that, in Ms. Rooney’s words, “After a process of consultation and deliberation, and with my full agreement, my publisher Faber has therefore determined that it can no longer supply my work within the UK.” In other words, if you live in Britain and you want to get your hands on a copy of “Normal People,” you’d better get down to the local bookstore or order it from Amazon post-haste, because when the current stocks run out, the books will go out of print and there will be no more opportunities to buy them new. Although judging by the number that can be found in thrift stores and second-hand bookstores, there is no serious chance that any would-be readers will be disappointed. Still, stock issues are one thing, but a successful novelist deciding to cut off a major market for her books is pretty much unheard of, even in the times we are living in. Her British publisher Faber issued a pained statement suggesting that “Current legislation in the UK has led to circumstances where Faber cannot pass on UK earnings to Sally Rooney for her work. To sell a writer’s work and not be able to pass on earnings is an unconscionable situation for a publisher. As such, and in full agreement with Sally, we have taken the decision that we can no longer supply her works in the UK in any format.” They then concluded that “We remain the proud publisher of her remarkable body of work, which we will continue to sell in other territories.” In the United States, Farrar, Straus and Giroux publish Ms. Rooney’s books. They have yet to issue any kind of statement, perhaps mindful that Palestine Action has also been designated as a terrorist group in America since late August this year. It should be noted that they have always been ardent supporters of their author’s writing, going so far as to distribute branded merchandise, including bucket hats and tote bags, to influencers.It is therefore likely that the same thing will eventually happen over here, albeit entirely through Ms. Rooney’s own decision, and that, without either British or American sales to sustain her in the English-language market, she will find that the million-copy selling success of “Normal People” will not get repeated.She has, of course, also opened herself up to charges of hypocrisy, given that her books are freely available in China, for instance, and she has remained conspicuously silent about the plight of the Uyghurs. Needless to say, she refused to allow her 2021 book “Beautiful World, Where Are You” to be published by the Israeli house Modan, on the grounds that the publisher did “not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the UN-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people”. It could, and probably should, be pointed out that she expressed no such reservation when it came to selling the rights — literary, rather than human — of “Normal People” and “Conversations with Friends” to the publisher, before the television adaptation of the former turned her into a literary superstar. Ms. Rooney, who claims that she has not visited the United Kingdom for a considerable period for fear of arrest for her views, is never going to be mistaken for a light-hearted bon vivant. But the division that has opened in Britain between those who think that the situation is outrageous and those who regard it as merely absurd divides up neatly along lines of age, political standing and gender. There are those Ms. Rooney stans who believe that she is a fiercely principled and brilliant novelist who is standing up for a cause that most of her peers are too gutless to countenance, and then there are other readers who think that she is a tiresome and overrated figure whose humorlessness has misled critics and readers into thinking that she is far more important than she is.The jury remains out, but if the current situation persists, she will have a great deal fewer readers than she once did. That, you feel, would suit Sally Rooney down to the ground, as long as she retains the right kind of reader. It is unclear as to whether any major American writer, whether of fiction or non-fiction, will be following Ms. Rooney’s lead. There are, of course, countless politically engaged authors who are only too quick to rail against everyone from Israel to the current government, but there has not been a high-profile figure who has simply withdrawn their books from circulation because of their political convictions. It remains to be seen whether writers now follow Ms. Rooney’s lead, and if, say, Margaret Atwood and George Saunders were to take similar action, then publishers might be galvanized into taking remedial measures beyond simply putting out a (no doubt AI-generated) statement. But it might also be that even the most successful authors feel that Ms. Rooney has taken a step too far and will not be rushing in to support her in this stance. If this is the case, you feel that the writer’s conversations — whether with friends or nemeses — will end up becoming even more limited for some time to come.

Bestselling Novelist Sally Rooney Chooses Designated Terrorist Organization Over British Book Sales

Bestselling Novelist Sally Rooney Chooses Designated Terrorist Organization Over British Book Sales

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