FTRF Files Amicus Brief
for The Wind Done Gone
ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation has joined the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and PEN American Center in defending the right of Houghton Mifflin to publish The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall. The estate of Mitchell has requested a preliminary injunction blocking the release of Randall’s book because, plaintiff attorney Tom Selz argues, it is an unauthorized sequel that commits “wholesale theft of major characters” from Gone With the Wind.
The Wind Done Gone is the Reconstruction-era diary of Cynara, the daughter of a former slave and the plantation owner of Tata. In their amicus brief, the three free-speech groups stated, “The copying and the commentary that lie at the heart of parody are inextricably intertwined.”
U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell heard oral arguments in the case April 18 and is expected to rule as soon as April 20. After the hearing, Randall, who is African-American, told the Associated Press that her book is a “political parody” and that “no one in my family would have spoken to me” if she had written a sequel to the Mitchell novel.
Posted April 23, 2001.
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