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The founders of the Jhalak Prize have said that smaller publishers are doing the “heavy lifting” when it comes to publishing “new, brave and unusual voices” from UK-based writers of colour.
Writing in The Bookseller, founder Sunny Singh said that as a consequence the judges of the prize, “quickly learned to look for books from small presses and indies, recognising that the chances of finding a new and exciting literary voice were higher”.
In its inaugural year, the Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour received a total of 118 submissions. Of those submitted, mainstream publishers (including large indies such as Canongate and Faber) sent in 58 books. Of these, there were 32 adult books (fiction and non-fiction), 15 in children’s and YA categories, and 11 cookery books.
Singh said the high proportion of cookery titles submitted indicated to the her “how little else had been published during the year” suitable for the prize. That and the preponderance of other non-fiction titles that were explicitly about race or about the writer’s country of ethnic origin, suggested that “writers of colour are primarily being granted space for writing ‘their’ experience while white writers have the authority to write on ‘universal’ themes.”
She added that the findings raised “urgent albeit complicated questions about the production and reproduction of knowledge, who is allowed to participate and the very real ramifications of this for all of us”.
Singh acknowledged that there had been “points of light” in how the sector was addressing its diversity gap. And she said the administrators of the prize were committed to releasing data around the number and range of entries each year, which she said would “hopefully assist other stakeholders in the industry to make informed and considered decisions for our collective literary future”.
The prize was awarded in March to The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross from small press Peepal Tree, founded in 1985. The title was called in by judges.