Ally, Critic or Both?
“What is the point of reviews anyway? And isn’t faux praise likely to curb rather than encourage good writing?”
Ally, Critic or Both?
Colin Grant
‘Do you think you could be a little more generous?’ pleaded the newspaper’s books editor when I submitted my less than glowing review of a debut novel by a writer of the global majority. I confess that, after some fuming, I complied with the editor’s request. But, reflecting on it now, who did my revised review aid? Isn’t faux praise likely to curb rather than encourage good writing? What is the point of reviews anyway? If they’re a way of educating the public taste in books then is it worth considering the pool from which these literary taste gurus are drawn? Who gets to review and who determines what is reviewed?
This question arose again when I invited Frank to read a review on WritersMosaic, the online platform primarily focused on writers of the global majority in the UK, edited robustly by an editorial team with decades of experience in publishing. He read the first paragraph and turned gravely towards me: ‘Well, it wouldn’t pass muster at the Guardian.’ Taken aback, I countered that his view was subjective. Frank restated his assertion but I reminded him that I, too, write for the Guardian. Neither of us was an editor there, so his titanic certainty was questionable.
Even so, I felt the sting of an associative rejection. This has become my writer’s origin story since 1994 when I received my first wounding letter of rejection, made even more maddening because it was from a literary agent whom I respected. I no longer possess the letter, but I remember every word. It began: ‘Dear Mr Grant, I am not particularly interested in ethnic writing …’
Three decades later, I write for the literary pages of several newspapers and, since my writing has been regularly published in them, a sound I have become very familiar with is the thud of unsolicited books, shoved through my letterbox, landing on the doormat. More than three quarters of these books are by writers of the global majority. Their arrival elicits an initial charge of excitement, followed by concern about the subjects which are often limited to race and identity. Even when they’re not about identity, they often come with a press release heralding the author’s ‘black British experience’.
So what? Publishing books by writers of colour, even if they are limited in their range, is a good trend, right? But it’s one thing to scale the bastion of British publishing houses and another to have those books critiqued and reviewed, and even more unusual for writers of the global majority to gain bylines on the arts pages of British newspapers as reviewers, beyond writing about the usual stereotypes.
In recent years, galvanised by the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, newspaper editors launched a flurry of commissioning from reviewers of colour. It hasn’t taken long, though, for all of the excitement to wear off and for the same editors largely to revert to the status quo, often with a tendency to patronise the works that are being reviewed.
The old order argues that writers of the global majority should accept the position where they find themselves in the mainstream media – of being asked (‘take it or leave it’) to write about the received idea of what the market dictates – is not personal, it’s just business. To re-establish the old order is to return to the practice where commissioning editors racialise writers; to make writers surrender to the notion that they should be grateful to those same books editors for giving them an unasked for upgrade from black to Black or Brown
The prevalence of tokenism and of short-term engagement with the work of writers of the global majority is an important reason why we, at WritersMosaic, have joined forces with the Jhalak Prize to launch this new publication The Review by WritersMosaic & Jhalak.
We take a holistic approach at The Review as allies of writers of the global majority but we are not patronisingly generous. The writer is at the centre of The Review. We nurture writers and work with them and if they aren’t ready to be published, we don’t publish them; no one gets a free pass but, equally, none of the writers for The Review will ever be left behind. In its scope and commitment to quality, and standards of writing, and editing, The Review’s ambition is to help to shape the future of mainstream literature in the UK. And its readers stand to benefit from the rich tapestry of work on offer that is often hidden or is simply not made available to them in the mainstream media.
The Review by WritersMosaic & Jhalak reviews books that will be chosen carefully and are not limited to stereotypes. We will edit reviewers’ work with rigour and empathy and look forward to the day when they begin to see The Review as the desired destination for their writing and an alternative to Frank at the Guardian.
© Colin Grant
Colin Grant
‘Do you think you could be a little more generous?’ pleaded the newspaper’s books editor when I submitted my less than glowing review of a debut novel by a writer of the global majority. I confess that, after some fuming, I complied with the editor’s request. But, reflecting on it now, who did my revised review aid? Isn’t faux praise likely to curb rather than encourage good writing? What is the point of reviews anyway? If they’re a way of educating the public taste in books then is it worth considering the pool from which these literary taste gurus are drawn? Who gets to review and who determines what is reviewed?
This question arose again when I invited Frank to read a review on WritersMosaic, the online platform primarily focused on writers of the global majority in the UK, edited robustly by an editorial team with decades of experience in publishing. He read the first paragraph and turned gravely towards me: ‘Well, it wouldn’t pass muster at the Guardian.’ Taken aback, I countered that his view was subjective. Frank restated his assertion but I reminded him that I, too, write for the Guardian. Neither of us was an editor there, so his titanic certainty was questionable.
Even so, I felt the sting of an associative rejection. This has become my writer’s origin story since 1994 when I received my first wounding letter of rejection, made even more maddening because it was from a literary agent whom I respected. I no longer possess the letter, but I remember every word. It began: ‘Dear Mr Grant, I am not particularly interested in ethnic writing …’
Three decades later, I write for the literary pages of several newspapers and, since my writing has been regularly published in them, a sound I have become very familiar with is the thud of unsolicited books, shoved through my letterbox, landing on the doormat. More than three quarters of these books are by writers of the global majority. Their arrival elicits an initial charge of excitement, followed by concern about the subjects which are often limited to race and identity. Even when they’re not about identity, they often come with a press release heralding the author’s ‘black British experience’.
So what? Publishing books by writers of colour, even if they are limited in their range, is a good trend, right? But it’s one thing to scale the bastion of British publishing houses and another to have those books critiqued and reviewed, and even more unusual for writers of the global majority to gain bylines on the arts pages of British newspapers as reviewers, beyond writing about the usual stereotypes.
In recent years, galvanised by the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, newspaper editors launched a flurry of commissioning from reviewers of colour. It hasn’t taken long, though, for all of the excitement to wear off and for the same editors largely to revert to the status quo, often with a tendency to patronise the works that are being reviewed.
The old order argues that writers of the global majority should accept the position where they find themselves in the mainstream media – of being asked (‘take it or leave it’) to write about the received idea of what the market dictates – is not personal, it’s just business. To re-establish the old order is to return to the practice where commissioning editors racialise writers; to make writers surrender to the notion that they should be grateful to those same books editors for giving them an unasked for upgrade from black to Black or Brown
The prevalence of tokenism and of short-term engagement with the work of writers of the global majority is an important reason why we, at WritersMosaic, have joined forces with the Jhalak Prize to launch this new publication The Review by WritersMosaic & Jhalak.
We take a holistic approach at The Review as allies of writers of the global majority but we are not patronisingly generous. The writer is at the centre of The Review. We nurture writers and work with them and if they aren’t ready to be published, we don’t publish them; no one gets a free pass but, equally, none of the writers for The Review will ever be left behind. In its scope and commitment to quality, and standards of writing, and editing, The Review’s ambition is to help to shape the future of mainstream literature in the UK. And its readers stand to benefit from the rich tapestry of work on offer that is often hidden or is simply not made available to them in the mainstream media.
The Review by WritersMosaic & Jhalak reviews books that will be chosen carefully and are not limited to stereotypes. We will edit reviewers’ work with rigour and empathy and look forward to the day when they begin to see The Review as the desired destination for their writing and an alternative to Frank at the Guardian.
Colin Grant
Colin Grant’s books include Bageye at the Wheel, shortlisted for the Pen Ackerley Prize, and Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. His latest book is I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be. His oral history of migration to Britain, What We Leave We Carry will be published in 2025. Grant is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and director of WritersMosaic, an online magazine and division of the Royal Literary Fund. He also writes for a number of newspapers including the TLS, Guardian, Observer and New York Review of Books.© Colin Grant