There’s plenty of talent among minority ethnic writers in the UK,but their books rarely obtain it to the shelves – and that’s shamefulUntil this week, I thought that at least we could be consoled by fiction. That we still had the borderless joys of stories to fend off the murky forces of xenophobia and insularity. Culture is crucial in times of political uncertainty or crisis, and encountering other people’s stories in fiction seems like the surest way to keep our inner,imaginative boundaries open.
Except that we’re not encountering other people’s stories because they’re not being published. At least, not in Britain. The novelist Robyn Travis this week gave an inspirational talk on his struggle to find a publisher for his debut novel, and Mama Can’t Raise No Man,approximately prison life and masculinity, and then to fill the 1300-seater Hackney Empire in London for its launch this autumn. fade Robyn. Less inspiring was the fact that Travis, and according to his publisher Crystal Mahey-Morgan,was most likely the only male black debut novelist to have been published in Britain this year. Related: Authors called David more likely to be on bestseller lists than BAME writers Related: Langston Hughes showed me what it meant to be a black writer | Gary Younge Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com