Where are the hotshot British male novelists? BAME authors may know

Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Abir Mukherjee, Courttia Newland, Guy Gunaratne, Paul Mendez and Okechukwu Nzelu on why British writers of colour are left out of the conversationAfter this week’s Booker prize longlist was announced, the Times asked “Where are the new male hotshot novelists?” I was expecting to see the article discussing the brilliant fiction by men, in particular men of colour, being written at the moment, but they were only mentioned in passing. It seemed the hotshot British male novelists the Times was looking for were really British, male and white.It’s exhausting that one of the reasons offered for the dearth of these voices is the industry’s efforts to “introduce more racial diversity to their lists”, posing diversity and inclusion once again as pitting people against each other. Ask any Black or Brown writer if they’re the reason white men are being shut out of the books world and they’ll probably shout, because the alternative is crying. In 2016, only one debut novel from a Black British male author was published in the UK. As the Black Writers’ Guild says, despite efforts across the industry, change isn’t happening fast enough.Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez is published by Dialogue BooksIn Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne is published by Tinder PressA River Called Time by Courttia Newland will be published by Canongate in January 2021The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney by Okechukwu Nzelu is published by Dialogue BooksThe 392 by Ashley Hickson-Lovence... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2020-07-31 14:10:18 UTC ]

Other news stories related to: "Where are the hotshot British male novelists? BAME authors may know"


How to Design a Cover for the Emotional Center of a Novel

When I began working on the design for the cover of Kyle Dillon Hertz’s debut novel The Lookback Window, I had two goals in mind: I wanted the book to be taken seriously, and I wanted to get it into the hands of readers who might not otherwise find it. Right from the beginning of […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-15 09:40:29 UTC ]
More news stories like this


‘A smorgasbord of unlikability’: the authors helping ‘sad girl lit’ grow up

In this post-Fleabag world, publishing has become obsessed with the inner turmoils of messy millennials – but isn’t it time they pulled themselves together? Meet the novelists subverting the clichesYou’ve probably come across this woman: she is unfulfilled in her career, has been abandoned by at... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-08-08 15:19:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this


“How To Care for a Human Girl” is the Novel for the Post-Roe Era 

Ashley Wurzbacher’s debut novel How To Care for a Human Girl jumps with both feet into the debate over reproductive rights. When two sisters find themselves pregnant not long after their mother’s death, Jada choses an abortion, while Maddie drifts into the sticky embrace of a crisis pregnancy... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-08 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Here is the 2023 Booker Prize longlist!

The freshly announced “Booker’s dozen” of titles longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize is making its way around the literary internet, so let’s see what the morning tides have brought in. There are four debut novelists on the list, and Irish writers nabbed a record four out of the 13 nominations... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-01 14:43:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

Previously nominated authors Sebastian Barry, Tan Twan Eng and Paul Murray join 13-strong field including four debuts• Irish writers, debuts – and groundbreaking sci-fi: the Booker longlist in depthA longlist of 13 “original and thrilling” books offering “startling portraits of the current” are... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-08-01 08:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Anita Gail Jones on Crafting Fiction From Family Heirlooms

For a decade while I was drafting it, my debut novel The Peach Seed had a different title, Peach Seed Monkey, which referred to a tiny monkey carved from a peach pit that had been a present to me and my sister when we were children. A book title has power to pique interest, crack […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-27 09:45:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Exclusive: See the cover for Phillip B. Williams’s debut novel, Ours.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ours, the debut novel by award-winning poet Philip B. Williams, forthcoming from Viking in February. Here’s a bit about the book from the publisher: In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-26 14:00:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this


I Can’t Offer Up My Culture for Consumption

As I prepare for the paperback launch of my debut novel The Girls in Queens, I share with a group of writers and artists that I’m putting together a Book Club Kit. This has become a fairly common digital offering; a colorful PDF of brief insights from the author, a recipe or two related to... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-25 11:12:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this


An annotated copy of Virginia Woolf’s difficult debut novel shows her evolution in action.

Virginia Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in the UK in 1915, after which she wanted to tweak some passages for the printing of the US edition. We know this thanks to the work of unsung hero Simon Cooper, a metadata officer at the University of Sydney, who found Woolf’s own copy... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-24 17:39:46 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Married to the mob: the rise of the smartphone in fiction

They interrupt narrative and disrupt plot – no wonder novelists have been slow to warm to mobile phones. But a new generation is putting technology at the heart of their workWhat do you call a phone when it rings in a fictional world? “Mobile” and “cell” are old, “smartphone” is almost a... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-07-22 10:00:09 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Stories Are All about Taking up Space: A Conversation with Ekemini Pius, by Darlington Chibueze Anuonye

Stories Are All about Taking up Space: A Conversation with Ekemini Pius, by Darlington Chibueze Anuonye Interviews [email protected] Thu, 07/20/2023 - 15:08 Photo by Offlong EkpenyongThe first week of July, the Caine Prize for African Writing... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2023-07-20 20:08:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Sarah Silverman and novelists sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for ingesting their books

Ask ChatGPT about comedian Sarah Silverman’s memoir “The Bedwetter” and the artificial intelligence chatbot can come up with a detailed synopsis of every part of the book Continue reading at ABC News

[ ABC News | 2023-07-12 22:32:35 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Sarah Silverman and novelists sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for ingesting their books

Ask ChatGPT about comedian Sarah Silverman’s memoir “The Bedwetter” and the artificial intelligence chatbot can come up with a detailed synopsis of every part of the book Continue reading at ABC News

[ ABC News | 2023-07-12 22:32:31 UTC ]
More news stories like this


RIP to one of the great horny novelists of the 20th century, Milan Kundera.

I was surprised to read this morning that Milan Kundera, the eminent Czech novelist best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, died yesterday at the age of 94. Mainly because I thought he was already dead. For a generation of literary types (Gen X in particular), Kundera was the cool,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-12 15:34:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this


The Morning After: The Amazon Prime Day deals worth your time and money

It’s back and here to ruin our savings and increase the gadgets in our homes. Yes, Amazon Prime Day isn’t entirely about headphones, tablets and wearables, but for Engadget staff… well, it feels like it is. Prime Day deals on tech are typically only matched by Black Friday and Cyber Monday... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-07-11 11:15:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta over copyright infringement

Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI. On Friday, the comedian and author, alongside novelists Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, filed a pair of complaints against OpenAI and Meta (via Gizmodo). The group alleges the firms trained their large language models on copyrighted materials, including... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-07-10 17:53:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this


This L.A. pharmacist's debut novel is loaded with sex and drugs. Don't tell her boss

Ruth Madievsky, a clinical pharmacist, insists her debut on sisters living dangerously is 'so fictional!' But it also channels her immigrant family's stories. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-07-06 13:00:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Letting a Wild Ride Be a Wild Ride: A Conversation with Amy Spangler, by Ipek Sahinler & Iclal Vanwesenbeeck

Letting a Wild Ride Be a Wild Ride: A Conversation with Amy Spangler, by Ipek Sahinler & Iclal Vanwesenbeeck Interviews [email protected] Wed, 07/05/2023 - 14:43 Amy Spangler is the co-translator (with Nermin Menemencioğlu) of Leylâ Erbil’s A... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2023-07-05 19:43:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Why a librarian’s debut novel explores forgiving the unforgivable

Debut novelist Terah Shelton Harris used to believe some actions were unforgivable. Then her mind was changed by survivors of a church shooting and a friend who was sexually assaulted. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2023-07-05 15:56:20 UTC ]
More news stories like this


Searching for Intimacy in the Gig Economy

Kathleen Cheng is having a hell of a Saturn Return. The late-20s protagonist of Jenny Xie’s debut novel Holding Pattern has just been dumped by the man she thought she’d spend her life with. Unmoored and questioning, she drops out of her cognitive psychology graduate program on the East Coast... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this