Sally Rooney's Books Pulled From UK Over Palestine Action
The Facts
- Irish novelist Sally Rooney and her publisher Faber said Wednesday that her books will no longer be supplied in the U.K. in any format, citing her support for Palestine Action, a group banned by the British government as a terrorist organization.
- Rooney said that after Palestine Action was proscribed in July 2025, she wrote an opinion piece pledging continued support for the group, which is not banned in Ireland, meaning fulfilling UK publishing contracts "could now constitute a serious criminal offence."
- Faber said current U.K. legislation prevents it from passing on U.K. earnings to Rooney, calling that an "unconscionable situation for a publisher." It added that it remains her publisher and will keep selling her work in other territories.
Sources Split
LEFT
CENTER
RIGHT
+1
ESTAB
CRIT
CENTER
PRO
ESTAB
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Anti-terror powers were built to stop bombings, not to scrub a novelist's work from British bookshelves. A law that criminalizes solidarity with a protest movement — and drags pensioners holding cardboard signs into police vans — has lost any claim to protecting the public. Silencing one of the finest writers of a generation over her conscience shames the government far more than the author.
Pro-establishment narrative
Nobody is being censored for an opinion. Rooney crossed a clear legal line by pledging to fund an organization banned under anti-terror law. A movement whose activists have cut through fences, bludgeoned a police officer and bloodied security guards is no debating society, and bankrolling it carries consequences. Laws that bind everyone else bind famous novelists, too.
