More than 100 writers including Booker winner Bernardine Evaristo, Benjamin Zephaniah and Malorie Blackman have called on all major publishing houses in the UK to introduce sweeping reforms to make the overwhelmingly white industry more inclusive at all levels.
As black authors top the bestseller charts in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd, the newly formed Black Writers' Guild (BWG), which counts among its members some of Britain's best known authors and poets, has written an open letter airing concerns that "British publishers are raising awareness of racial inequality without significantly addressing their own".