Ullstein under fire for removing J D Vance's bestseller from list

German trade publisher Ullstein is under fire by media outlets across the political spectrum for its decision to remove J D Vance’s international bestseller Hillbilly Elegy from its list instead of extending the recently expired rights. 

The 39-year-old US author and conservative politician was recently announced as Donald Trump’s running mate for the upcoming US elections on November 6th.

Hillbilly Elegy, originally published in 2016, will be available as of Tuesday (30th July) in a new paperback edition from YES Publishing. The Munich-based non-fiction publisher had originally set a publication date of August 15th but brought that forward to fulfil growing demand. According to co-publisher Oliver Kuhn who founded YES four years with Pascale Breitenstein, the first print run of 20,000 copies has already sold out before the paperback hit the shops. Further print runs will be timed according to demand.

Ullstein has last week justified its controversial decision in a short statement to the German news magazine Spiegel with Vance’s transformation from being a vocal critic of Trump when Hillbilly Elegy was published, to one of his most outspoken followers, adopting an "aggressive, demagogic, ostracising policy". But the controversy in the German media rages on, with Ullstein being accused of heavy-handed cancel culture and politicising the German book industry.

In the absence of a German translation of Hillbilly Elegy, the English-language paperback published by William Collins has been selling strongly in Germany.