Publisher delays YA novel amid row over its invented black vernacular

When We Was Fierce by eE Charlton-Trujillo uses invented street dialect slammed by one reviewer as ‘rife with insult and lack of awareness’

The publication of young adult novel When We Was Fierce has been postponed by its author and publisher following harsh criticism of the “deeply offensive” invented black vernacular it is narrated in.

eE Charlton-Trujillo’s verse novel tells of a teenager, Theo, who sees a brutal gang attack on a disabled boy and decides to intervene. Its publisher, Candlewick, which had intended to release the novel on 9 August but has delayed it following the controversy, said it is told “largely in street dialect” by the Mexican-American Charlton-Trujillo, author of the award-winning Fat Angie.

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