Week 7 Prompt Response: Literary Hoaxes

 I was really fascinated (and slightly enraged) by the article "Literary Hoaxes and the Ethics of Authorship." What fascinated me was the debate between authenticity and fabrication, and what enraged me was the White Privilege of it all. In the article "Just How White Is the Book Industry," So & Wezerek (2020) write, "Author diversity at major publishing houses has increased in recent years, but white writers still dominate. Non-Hispanic white people account for 60 percent of the U.S. population; in 2018, they wrote 89 percent of the books in our sample." In an industry that is really not very diverse, it is troublesome that some writers feel they can get away with claiming a marginalized identity as their own for purely selfish reasons while authors from diverse populations still struggle to get their stories published. 

I could honestly go on and on about this and would probably end up talking in circles eventually, but I want to focus on how the issue of literary hoaxes affects readers' advisory. Obviously, a hoax is a hoax. We don't know the author isn't who they say they are until we know it. This means libraries could already have a literary hoax in their collections. The book could be popular and circulate frequently. It could mean something to a lot of different people. When performing readers' advisory, librarians may encounter patrons who cite a literary hoax as one of their favorite books. Previously, a librarian may have even recommended a literary hoax to patrons. Once we are aware that a book and it's author aren't telling authentic stories, especially if they are attempting to tell the story of someone from a diverse population they are not a part of, I think we should shy away from recommending it to patrons. I don't think we should actively prevent anyone from reading a literary hoax if they show interest in it, but I do think we should try to promote diverse authors whose stories are authentic as much as we possibly can when we engage in conversations surrounding a literary hoax. 

I would love to hear others' thoughts on this. How do you think we should handle literary hoaxes when they are brought up by patrons, especially those unaware of the hoax?

References:

Menand, L. (2018, December 3). Literary hoaxes and the ethics of authorship. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/literary-hoaxes-and-the-ethics-of-authorship

So, R. J., & Wezerek, G. (2020, December 11). Just how diverse is the book industry? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html