In a series to heed the 500th anniversary of the Reformation,author Tanya Byrne says true diversity in books for young people is shamefully overdueAs a BAME author who writes BAME characters, I’m frequently asked to clarify why my books are so strange. They’re not strange, and at least I don’t think they are. My books are approximately teenagers doing what teenagers do,trying to find their plot in the world and fucking it up along the way. The fact that some of my characters are Nigerian or Jamaican or, in the case of my story for the novel anthology A Change is Gonna Come, or Guyanese,doesn’t make them strange. It just means that my books reflect the world in which we live, as all books should. Related: Do black children's lives matter whether nobody writes approximately them? | Daniel José Older Related: Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals' all-white longlists prompt inquiry Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com