How Gabrielle Zevin’s ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ Became an Unlikely Lightning Rod in Literary Battles Over the Israel-Hamas War

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” Gabrielle Zevin’s novel about video game designers, has topped the bestseller list for two years and was recently named one of the New York Times’ 100 best books of the 21st century.

But for months, Zevin, an author of Jewish and Korean descent with nine other books to her credit, has been making headlines for a different reason: accusations from pro-Palestinian corners of the literary world that she is a “Zionist” and that her works therefore deserve a boycott.

Zevin has never published her views on Israel. But she has become an unlikely poster figure for the culture wars over Israel that have permeated arts and culture spaces, particularly the literary world, since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. The latest flare-up came last weekend, when a manager at a Chicago bookstore, City Lit, told book club members they could no longer vote to read Zevin’s book because of her alleged Zionism.

“It was brought to my attention that the author Gabrielle Zevin is a Zionist, and I don’t feel comfortable with us reading anything by her, especially since people would buy it in the store and she would receive financial support from us,” the assistant manager wrote in the email. He continued, “If you want to read it, I suggest you get it from the library and read it critically!”

Zevin, 46, grew up in Florida with her Korean mother and Jewish father before attending Harvard University. She published her first novels in 2005 and has had a steady output since then, but “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is by far her most successful work. The book’s two main characters, Sam and Sadie, are both of Jewish descent, a detail Zevin called autobiographical; she told the Harvard Crimson in 2022, “I am, like Sam in the book, half Jewish and half Korean.” While promoting a 2014 book, she wrote, “I am the product of no religion to speak of, except, if this is not too pretentious to write, the religion of books.”

Readers, generally on the left, who claim that Zevin is a Zionist base their positions on an incident in which she appeared at an event in February 2023 organized by the Zionist women’s organization Hadassah (a group that appears briefly in the novel).

Lisa Hostein, editor-in-chief of Hadassah Magazine, condemned City Lit’s move on social media as anti-Semitic, confirming that even Hadassah is unaware of Zevin’s position on Israel.

“I don’t know if Gabrielle Zevin considers herself a Zionist or not,” Hostein tweeted on Monday, adding that Hadassah had selected “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” for her own national book club and that when the magazine spoke to her, “Zevin spoke proudly of her dual Jewish-Korean heritage, themes she was taking up in her writing for the first time.”

Hostein added: “I also know that boycotting a Jewish author because he appears before the largest Jewish women’s organization in the country is anti-Semitism, pure and simple.”

Some also note that “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” includes an Israeli character, although the novel mentions Israel only in passing and the character is generally seen as unsympathetic. “Gabrielle Zevin incorporated Israeli sympathy into her books,” a pro-Palestinian advocate of boycotting “known Zionist authors” wrote on X.

Before the current uproar, Zevin was one of dozens of authors who recently appeared on a viral online list titled “Is your fav author a Zionist???” — recommending boycotts against authors for whom the answer was yes, like Zevin.

The list was condemned by the Jewish Book Council, whose president compared it to Nazi-era book burnings, and several authors on the list expressed concern that they would be subject to anti-Semitic targeting as a result. In response to such incidents, the Jewish Book Council launched an initiative for authors to report any anti-Semitism they experience in the literary world.

Zevin was also the subject of targeted attacks on social media in December, when FairyLoot, a fantasy subscription service, defended its decision to promote a special edition of her book despite online backlash over its perceived Zionism.

FairyLoot dismissed the Zionism accusation as “completely baseless.” In contrast, City Lit did not address its manager’s assumption that Zevin was a Zionist when it posted a statement on social media on Monday apologizing for removing “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” from the book club poll.

“The moderator removed the book from the poll in the hopes that the group would be in (sic) a safe and comfortable environment,” the bookstore said. “A better course of action would have been to allow the group to discuss and vote on this decision. For that we apologize.”

The lengthy statement did not apologize to Zevin. The store said her name came forward after “multiple members” of the book club “privately contacted the moderator to express their discomfort with the title.” The statement went on to reject accusations that removing the book as an option would be anti-Semitism or censorship.

Still, the store appeared to apologize to the Jewish community. “We will continue to welcome and host Jewish authors in our space,” it said. “We understand that Jewish people have been subjected to unfair criticism due to current political events, and we sincerely apologize to anyone who has been subjected to that backlash.”

Calls to City Lit were not answered.

Zevin, who recently completed a national tour promoting the paperback edition of the book, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment through her agent.

She has never made public statements about Israel, and she does not discuss the subject in her live appearances. Perhaps the closest she has come was during a radio interview in June, when she was asked how she thought it would be for first-time paperback readers if it came out “at a time when we have a lot of major international conflicts.”

Zevin responded by talking about her characters, not readers. “I think the worlds that my characters are in in the book is the world,” she said. “It has everything in it, not necessarily the specificity of 2024, you know, but it doesn’t exist in a world that doesn’t have conflict.”

With the author back in the spotlight this week, both Jewish and non-Jewish critics of the Palestinian boycott movement were quick to condemn City Lit. Democratic Rep. Richie Torres of New York, a prominent pro-Israel voice in Congress and on social media, was among those condemning the bookstore.

“Since most Jews are Zionists, the ban amounts to putting up a sign that says, ‘No Jews Allowed.’” Torres tweeted“Anyone who implements policies that exclude most Jews is guilty of institutionalizing anti-Semitism.”

Edward Einhorn, a New York theater director, tweeted: “Gabrielle Zevin’s transgressions appear to be: she had an Israeli character in a book, she spoke at Hadassah, and she is Jewish. This kind of anti-Semitic McCarthyism is truly appalling.”

The pro-Palestinian backlash doesn’t seem to bother Zevin. In addition to her spot on the New York Times list, an upcoming film adaptation of the novel, which has sold nearly 3 million copies worldwide, is planned, directed by Sian Heder, the Oscar-winning writer and director of “CODA.”