LONDON (AP) — “The Salt Path” is a memoir of resilience and courage that captured the hearts of millions and was subsequently adapted for the big screen, with actors Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs taking the lead roles.
But now, the book and the film are mired in a controversy that could see them suffer that very modern phenomenon — being canceled.
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A copy of "The Salt Path", by Raynor Winn is on display in a book store, in London, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A copy of "The Salt Path", by Raynor Winn is on display in a book store, in London, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A copy of "The Salt Path", by Raynor Winn is on display in a book store, in London, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Actress Gillian Anderson, left, and author Raynor Winn pose ahead of the at the 42nd Munich Film Festival in Munich, Germany, July 1, 2025. (Felix Hörhager/dpa via AP)
On Friday, publisher Penguin Michael Joseph agreed with author Raynor Winn to delay the publication of her next book, “On Winter Hill" from this October after “intrusive conjecture” about her husband’s health.
The delay is the latest blowback from a bombshell report in Sunday's The Observer newspaper in the United Kingdom that claimed there was more to the 2018 book than met the eye — that key elements of the story had been fabricated.
Author Raynor Winn stands accused of betraying the trust of her readers and of reaping a windfall on the back of lies. Winn accepts “mistakes” were made, but that the overarching allegations were “highly misleading.” She has sought legal counsel.
Winn's book tells how she and her husband of 32 years, Moth Winn — a well-to-do couple — made the impulsive decision to walk the rugged 630 miles (around 1,000 kilometers) of the South West Coast Path in the southwest of England after losing their house because of a bad business investment.
Broke and homeless, the memoir relays how the couple achieved spiritual renewal during their trek, which lasted several months and which saw them carry essentials and a tent on their back.
The book also recounts how Moth Winn was diagnosed with the extremely rare and incurable neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration, or CBD, and how his symptoms had abated following the walk.
It sold 2 million copies, became a regular read at book clubs, spawned two sequels and the film adaptation, which was released this spring, to generally positive reviews.
On its website, publisher Penguin described the book as “an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.”
That statement was released before the controversy that erupted last Sunday.
In a wide-ranging investigation, The Observer said that it found a series of fabrications in Raynor Winn's tale. It said the couple’s legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, and that Winn misrepresented the events that led to the couple losing their home.
The newspaper said that the couple lost their home following accusations that Winn had stolen tens of thousands of pounds from her employer. It also said that the couple had owned a house in France since 2007, meaning that they weren't homeless.
And perhaps more damaging, the newspaper said that it had spoken to medical experts who were skeptical about Moth having CBD, given his lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them.
The book's ability to engender empathy from its readers relied on their personal circumstances. Without those hooks, it's a very different tale.
As a writer of what was represented as a true story, Winn had to attest to her publisher that the book was a fair and honest reflection of what transpired.
Any memoir may have omissions or hazy recollections.
But making things up is a clear no-no.
In the immediate aftermath, Winn made a brief comment on her website about the “highly misleading” accusations and insisted that the book "lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.”
She fleshed out her response on Wednesday, describing the previous few days have been “some of the hardest of my life,” while acknowledging "mistakes” in her business career.
She also linked documents appearing to show Moth had been diagnosed with CBD, and described how the accusations that Moth made up his illness have left them “devastated.”
After the allegations were published, Penguin said it undertook "the necessary pre-publication due diligence,” and that prior to The Observer story, it hadn't received any concerns about the book’s content.
It'll be interesting to see how the book's sales and the film's box office receipts are affected by the controversy. Those should start emerging in the coming days.
In addition, there are questions now as to whether the film will find a U.S. distributor and whether Winn, in particular, will face compensation claims, potentially even from readers.
Winn was meant to be in the western England town of Shrewsbury on Friday on the Saltlines tour, a “words and music collaboration” between her and folk band The Gigspanner Big Band.
Her legal team said that Winn is “deeply sorry to let down those who were planning to attend the Saltlines tour, but while this process is ongoing, she will be unable to take part.”
A copy of "The Salt Path", by Raynor Winn is on display in a book store, in London, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A copy of "The Salt Path", by Raynor Winn is on display in a book store, in London, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A copy of "The Salt Path", by Raynor Winn is on display in a book store, in London, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Actress Gillian Anderson, left, and author Raynor Winn pose ahead of the at the 42nd Munich Film Festival in Munich, Germany, July 1, 2025. (Felix Hörhager/dpa via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At least eight people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country.
“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
Larijani’s remarks likely referenced America’s wide military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel's 12-day war on the Islamic Republic. No one was injured, though a missile did hit a structure there.
As of Friday, no major changes had been made to U.S. troop levels in the Middle East or their preparations following Trump’s social media posts, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.
In a letter late Friday to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the U.N. Security Council, Iran's envoy asked the world body to condemn the rhetoric and reaffirm the country's "inherent right to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security, and to protect its people against any foreign interference.”
“The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation," said Amir Saeid Iravani, Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”
Trump's online message marked a direct sign of support for the demonstrators, something other American presidents have avoided out of concern that activists would be accused of working with the West. During Iran's 2009 Green Movement demonstrations, President Barack Obama held back from publicly backing the protests — something he said in 2022 “was a mistake.”
But such White House support still carries a risk.
“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very U.S. involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei recently cited a list of Tehran’s longtime grievances regarding U.S. intervention, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and the strikes in June.
Protests continued Friday in various cities in the country, even as life largely continued unaffected in the capital, Tehran. Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. It said the death toll in the demonstrations rose to eight with the death of a demonstrator in Marvdasht in Iran's Fars province.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Zahedan in Iran's restive Sistan and Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan. The burials of several demonstrators killed in the protests also took place Friday, sparking marches.
Videos purported to show mourners chasing off security force members who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Iran's Lorestan province.
Footage also showed Khodayari's father denying his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there were now questions about the government's claims that he served.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials. That sparked the initial protests.
The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since the June war.
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.
A woman shows a portrait of the late commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, on her smartphone during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wave Iranian flags as one of them holds up a poster of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This combo shows President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. and Iranian Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Bilal Hussein)
