Shortlist announced for UK’s inaugural BAME prize

The shortlist for the UK’s inaugural Jhalak Prize for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) writers has been announced, reports the Guardian.

The shortlisted titles are:

• The Girl of Ink and Stars (Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Chicken House)
• A Rising Man (Abir Mukhergee, Harvill Secker)
• Speak Gigantular (Irenosen Okojie, Jacaranda Books)
• Black and British: A Forgotten History (David Olusoga, Macmillan)
• The Bone Readers (Jacob Ross, Peepal Tree)
• Another Day in the Death of America (Gary Younge, Faber).

Independent publishers make up four of the six shortlisted titles, which include two nonfiction books, two adult novels, a YA novel and a short-story collection.

Chair of the prize Sunny Singh said the ‘diversity of backgrounds, themes, forms and genres are testament to the wide spectrum of great writing being produced in the country’. Singh previously called publishers ‘pathetic’ after the award received fewer submissions than expected.

The £1000 (A$1628) Jhalak Prize was established to recognise ‘authors who feel that their work is often marginalised unless it fulfils a romantic fetishisation of their cultural heritage’ after a report found that the best chance of publication for writers of colour was to write literary fiction conforming to a stereotypical view of their communities.

Category: International news