Lawrence author and University of Kansas professor Laura Moriarty, seen here, found herself at the center of controversy last fall when online commenters accused her yet-to-be-published YA novel American

Lawrence author and University of Kansas professor Laura Moriarty found herself at the center of a full-blown Twitter storm last fall, when her yet-to-be-released young-adult novel “American Heart” drew criticism for alleged cultural insensitivity.

The work of speculative fiction imagines a future in which Muslims are interned at detention camps in the American West, not unlike Japanese-Americans during World War II. Borrowing from Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the story is told through the perspective of its teenage white protagonist, Sarah-Mary Williams, of Hannibal, Mo., who doesn’t question the Muslim internment initially. Her ignorance melts away after meeting Iranian-Muslim immigrant Sadaf, and soon Sarah-Mary becomes an ally in Sadaf’s escape to Canada.

On the book-recommendation website Goodreads and on social media, critics of “American Heart” denounced the book for its “white savior narrative” without having read it first. In a much-publicized and perhaps unprecedented move last October, Kirkus Reviews, which had received an advance copy to review, took away the star rating it had originally given the book.

Months later, Moriarty still believes Kirkus Reviews simply caved to online critics. But, with “American Heart” slated for release Jan. 30, she’s hoping readers will give her modern-day “Huckleberry Finn” tale a chance. Here, in a condensed and edited version of Moriarty’s interview with the Journal-World, the English professor talks diversity in literature, censorship and today’s “worrisome” political climate.

Why did you write this book? And where did the inspiration come from?

Well, I was growing more concerned with the rhetoric of the 2016 presidential campaign. I feel like the sentiment against immigrants and American Muslims has been growing increasingly worrisome. And I think with the 2016 election, there was talk of patrolling neighborhoods, and I think what really, really worried me (was when) in November of 2015, Trump — then, of course, just a candidate — said that he had seen thousands of Arab Americans cheering in New Jersey as the towers went down. And to me, that was just the most worrisome propaganda.

So many journalists really tried to make it clear that he was obviously making this up, because there were no documents, no photographs, no police officer who said they’d seen this mass celebration. But obviously there are people today who still believe that happened. But to me, that was just such a worrisome lie for him to say without backing down from it, because it’s (9/11) such an emotional topic, I think, for Americans.

And so I started thinking more and more about this. I read this book called “The Train to Crystal City,” and that is a book about how Japanese-Americans and German-Americans were interned during World War II. Sort of putting those two things together and thinking about how we need to think about our past and how we need to think about our future.

Do you feel the criticism leveled against you was fair? And, now that you’re a few months removed from the initial backlash, have your feelings about your critics’ assessments changed at all?

Well, I don’t know if I’d put it in a category of whether or not it’s fair. I mean, I knew when I started to write this book that you can’t write a book about Islamophobia and not expect that you’ll get criticism. Anyone could be angry on either side. And I knew the extreme right and the extreme left would be upset about this. But this is really just a book about core American values, you know? And so it seems to me right now that politically, if you write anything about core American values, you’re going to make the extremes mad. And that’s OK with me.

Whether or not that’s fair, people have the rights to their own opinions, and they can criticize that if they’d like to. It’s fair for them to be able to say what they think. I don’t agree with that assessment, and I don’t know that most people would if they stopped and read the book for themselves. So, no, my thoughts on it haven’t changed. I sort of anticipated what some people would say, and I thought about it and tried to think critically and put myself in other people’s shoes. And I still think what the book can do is good.

Did you ever consider writing the book from the perspective of Sadaf, the Muslim immigrant?

So many people are mad that the protagonist and the narrator is white and non-Muslim — those same people would have been even angrier if I had written from Sadaf’s point of view. But that’s not why I shied away from it. It’s my personal belief that if someone is able and willing to write from another voice, they should be able to. If they’re able to imagine it in a way that feels authentic and accurate, then I would never put those limits on that person.

The book isn’t about the Muslim experience in America. The book is about Islamophobia in America. So, to me it makes sense that Sarah-Mary would be the narrator, that she would be the person telling the story, because it’s her issue. I was thinking of James Baldwin. I’m sort of summarizing his words, but he said something to white people like, “What is it in you that needs these words? What’s the psychology behind it?” And I really wanted to examine the psychology of someone who is fearful of someone she’s never met. And having grown up in a society that has taught her to fear other people she hasn’t met, and sort of breaking down the logic there, and at the same time not totally demonizing her as this awful person but just this person who hadn’t had the chance to interact with someone outside of propaganda.

Artistically and creatively, I wanted her to be my main character. But I’m very aware that for the people who were upset, there’s really no “correct” way for me to write this book.

This idea of the ignorant or morally stunted white character “unlearning” their bigotry through actually getting to know a person of color is a theme that’s been used in so many classics, “Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” included. And those books have been challenged throughout history, and perhaps even more so now. How do you think “Huckleberry Finn,” for example, would be received in today’s climate?

It would be pretty rough (laughs). The language would really be tough to get through these days, and there’s absolutely no way that it could be published as a YA book. You can have discussions about “Huck Finn,” about how it’s painful, without banning it and saying we shouldn’t read it anymore. You can contextualize it and talk about it and have those discussions, and those discussions are really important to have.

So, yes, I think it (“Huckleberry Finn”) would have a hard time today. But at the same time, it’s not so terrible what is happening. It’s wonderful that we are seeing more books by people of color. I’m not really bemoaning the past, but I’d like it to be a conversation about hearing more voices instead of having just a different angle on hearing only some voices and not hearing all.

For one, I think it’s limiting to artists. I think it’s really scary whenever you make these politically dogmatic ideas about, “You are not allowed to write this.” But I also think it’s just bad strategy, because I think if this keeps happening, I think what you’ll find is white writers will continue to write and they’ll continue to be published, but they’ll just write about white people or just write about very safe topics so as to just not engage with this (issue). And then where would we be? Are writers of color the only ones who are allowed to write about racial issues that really affect us all and are really everyone’s problem? I think that’s worse, and I think it’s also an unfair burden to put on writers of color.

What does this whole situation say about art now? Are you worried that this is a trend that’s going to become the norm?

Oh, I’m very much worried about it. Art is a way for us to transcend our identities and feel empathy with one another, you know? Whenever you read a novel, you get to spend some time living in someone else’s world, and leaving your own experience. I rarely like to write about my own life because, just like the pleasure of reading allows you to completely immerse yourself in a different world, writing allows that even more.

So, to think that that might be lost because of this really rigid, dogmatic (message) of “you cannot write this,” I think it’s truly worrisome. And it is spreading to adult literature.

Where does this leave you now? Have you begun to think about what you might want to do next?

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this book. It might not seem that way, but I’m pretty lucky with what happened. At least with my (book), people know what happened because Kirkus accidentally published the original review. And there was all this news about it, so people knew what happened.

Also, I’m thinking my publisher is probably pretty nervous, and this has probably been pretty tough on them. So, if a book like mine is going on sale now, like it’s coming up from agents to the big (publishing) houses, it seems likely they’re not going to take it — unless “American Heart” does very, very well.

But it seems like that’s where the censorship is going to come in from now on. I think authors will self-censor. But even the ones who don’t, I think it’s going to be tougher for anybody to do anything that might anger this group. There’s going to be some censoring going on, and it’s going to take a very brave publishing house to step forward and (take these books on), especially after Kirkus capitulated like this.

I’m always going to write what I want to write, you know? I don’t know if what I want to write will always be published. You can’t always know that as a writer, and certainly throughout history there have been writers who have not been published because of political climates. I’m going to write what I want to write, and I’ll have to see if the political current of the next few years accepts it or not.

Anything else you’d like to add?

One thing is, I really think the novel is hopeful, and I think it’s a novel that celebrates what America is supposed to be about and what a lot of people still believe in and what it could be again. In a way, I’m glad that all this came out, because these are issues that really need to be talked about. It’s interesting that the tagline on the front of the book is, “Fear is the quickest path to obedience,” and that has certainly played out in ways outside of the novel in the discussions of political identities and writers.

But I hope that the whole message of the book isn’t just completely commandeered by that conversation, because I think there’s some importance actually within the pages. And I hope some writers will check it out and see what they think for themselves.