It had not yet appeared on the German book market when Dylan Farrow's debut novel caused a scandal.

This scandal was not about the fact that the story of a young woman who resists being silenced by a gang of dark men can be read as a parable of the life of her author.

Because one cannot speak of new revelations about what has preoccupied the literary debutante for almost her entire life.

The adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, born in 1985, accused the director of sexually abusing her in 1992 at the age of seven.

A court hearing and a number of public mud battles never provided an answer to the question of whether the statements made by the child, from which the young woman never deviated, are really credible.

Years later, however, Woody Allen was declared a persona non grata by many.

Dylan Farrow's fantasy novel is published in German by Loewe Verlag in Bayreuth.

He advertised it with the name of her famous adoptive father, which called on net feminists who accused the publisher of putting Farrow in the shadow of the man who may have done her worst.

In feminist jargon: "Silencing".

The result: the publisher changed its advertising strategy.

And the names of Dylan Farrow's adoptive parents have to disappear from the cover of the book.

What exactly was going on?

We asked Loewe Publishing Director Christoph Gondrom.

WORLD:

To what extent did it play a role for your publisher's interest in the rights to “Hush” that the author is the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen?

Christoph Gondrom:

Our credo at Loewe Verlag is to always see fabrics through the eyes of the target group.

So we would never publish a work if we are not convinced that the target group will benefit from reading it.

So we decided to publish “Hush” because of its literary quality.

The background story about Mia Farrow, Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen certainly makes the work doubly interesting, because in the course of a debate that has been simmering since the 1990s, it is a very important contribution that also goes beyond the specific autobiographical reference.