Re “Best-Selling Author Delays a New Novel She Set in Siberia” (Arts, June 14):

Delaying the publication of Elizabeth Gilbert’s new novel simply because it’s set in Russia is wrong on so many levels — ethically, intellectually, pragmatically.

I don’t doubt her sincerity in believing that this move would be welcomed as noble. But like so many other countless examples of this type of performative virtue signaling, it actually demonstrates the exact opposite of what was intended.

Self-censorship in this way is illiberal, infantilizing and intellectually bankrupt. But perhaps most unforgivable, especially for a novelist, it is totally lacking in any moral imagination.

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Note: This post was published as a letter to the editor in The New York Times

Image: Gideon Rubin