Best selling Feminist author Roxane Gay has pulled her upcoming book How to be Heard from its publisher TED books, a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster.

The move is in response to the publishing giant commissioning a book from author Milo Yiannopoulos, a hero of the alt-right movement.

Gay is best known for her 2014 essay collection Bad Feminist which is published by a different publishing company.

Simon and Schuster have defended their decision to sign a US$250,000 deal to publish the autobiography of Milo Yiannopoulos, saying people should not make judgement until they read the book.

Their decision to provide a platform to the controversial author has led to several authors proclaiming they will no longer allow their works to be published by the company.

Yiannopouos, who has been a guest on SKY News’ The Bolt Report several times, is an outspoken journalist who was banned from social media platform Twitter in 2016 after he was involved in a campaign encouraging people to troll Ghostbusters’ actress Leslie Jones.

Since being banned off Twitter, Yiannopoulos has moved over to Instagram and Facebook to post messages on social media, proudly describing himself as the most fabulous super-villain on the internet.

The British author was a prominent campaigner for US President Donald Trump and has regularly caused controversy with his arguments against political correctness, Islam, social justice and feminism. Yiannopoulos, who is gay, has also repetitively said he believes transgender people are mentally ill.

Yiannopoulos has been on a speaking tour around US college campus that have regularly attracted violent protests. In 2016 the author told Andrew Bolt that he’d love to bring his Dangerous Faggot tour to Australia.

OIP Staff