As an element of contemporary literary criticism, the term “cultural appropriation” has sucked the life out of literature. Authors have always meant to write about other people’s lives. Jane Austen understood this better than most, and her wisdom is more timely than ever.

After the release of American Dirt earlier this year, the novel quickly fell from the year’s most-hyped work of fiction to the year’s most excoriated one. And the reason was, generally, that a white woman had appropriated Hispanic culture.