The Future of “Diverse” Literature

“[…] a world in which diversity is a given is a world in which diversity can no longer be leveraged, unevenly prioritized, or weaponized. And what on earth would that be like?”

BY: RYANNE KAP

Art by Daniel Gomes // THE UNDERGROUND

If you’ve been anywhere on the internet in the last five years, you’ve probably heard something about diverse storytelling. Whether it’s in Marvel movies or kids’ shows (which arguably have about the same care for plot and continuity), there’s been a serious push in the entertainment industry to have more representative work. 

If you follow authors and publishers, or care at all about Book Twitter, then you’ve definitely heard about how we need more diverse literature in particular. There are entire organizations devoted to this cause; We Need Diverse Books is a nonprofit created in 2014 to promote diversity in children’s literature and publishing. 

When we talk about diversity in literature, what we’re really talking about is how marginalized communities are represented (or, alternatively, how they’re left out). For the purpose of this article, I’m going to focus on perhaps the most immediately recognized and acknowledged group: Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC). BIPOC itself is a somewhat contested and imperfect term, but in this context it refers to writers who belong to a racial minority.

The publishing industry remains a predominantly white one, which allows for systematic racism to flourish. BIPOC writers often have their work dismissed for not being “relatable enough” to white readers, and often face added pressure to be commercially successful compared to their white counterparts.

In the Canadian literary scene (AKA CanLit), many BIPOC writers have pointed out other institutional barriers. In her speech at the 2013 literASIAN writers’ festival, Madeleine Thien addressed the lack of nonwhite nominees for literary awards, as well as book critics’ inability to understand diverse cultures. 

In an open letter exploring the “racism and entitlement at the heart of CanLit,” Jen Sookfong Lee writes, “[...] I was constantly placed in white-dominated literary spaces (readings, writers festivals, etc.), which made me feel both visible and invisible, as well as profoundly uncomfortable.”

In June, the hashtag #PublishingPaidMe exposed the glaring disparity between what white authors are paid in advances compared to Black authors; the trend demonstrated that even little-known white authors receive astronomical sums compared to Black authors with well-established fanbases. As Constance Grady explains in a piece for Vox, the systemic biases of the publishing industry “affect which books publishers choose to invest in, and that, in turn, affects which books end up succeeding.” 

Even when the industry tries to make amends, it can end up being a shallow and even harmful gesture. Back in January, Barnes & Noble and Penguin Random House—two of the biggest publishing houses in North America—tried (and failed) to promote diverse storytelling by changing the covers of 12 classic novels to feature BIPOC versions of the protagonists, including Frankenstein and Peter Pan. 

Many pointed out that rather than making a superficial and useless “Diversity Edition” of books by white authors, the publishing giants could’ve lifted up actual non-white authors instead. 

Tweet by author Bethany C. Morrow (@BCMorrow)

Simply changing an iconic character’s race isn’t enough to count as representation; you need stories that are authentically rooted in a BIPOC character’s experiences, and that change isn’t just skin-deep. 

Thus, the problem of diversity (or rather lack thereof) is twofold: the books we read and the people who write them.

But my question isn’t necessarily how to solve the problem. It’s about what will happen if we do.

Let’s say that in this Hypothetical Future, the publishing industry is as diverse as the world we live in. Rather than featuring predominantly white authors who write about predominantly white characters, bookstores are stocked with a much more respectable percentage of books about BIPOC characters written by BIPOC authors (whatever that means to you; this is an imaginary and arbitrary number).

There are Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous people on book covers, in an appropriate proportion to white people on book covers. The stories within those books address a vast range of lived experiences, not just what it’s like to live in suburbia and hate your parents. 

Oh, and BIPOC authors have equal opportunities to get published. At literary festivals, there are no more panels on diversity, because now every panel is diverse. It’s just a given.

But a world in which diversity is a given is a world in which diversity can no longer be leveraged, unevenly prioritized, or weaponized. And what on earth would that be like?

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with taking pride in belonging to and representing a minority. Many authors include their ethnic background in their bios (I myself have written “Chinese-Canadian” into mine). But to be completely cynical, including a racial or ethnic designation isn’t always a matter of pride. Sometimes it’s a matter of what will set you apart as “diverse”—that magic buzzword that the publishing industry can’t get enough of.

Yet “diverse” seems to have lost any real meaning. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Dionne Brand expresses her disdain for the term. When asked if she’s worried that “the current effort to ensure diversity in publications is simply a cyclical trend,” Brand responds, “Diverse from what? Diverse from human?” 

She pinpoints what diversity in publishing really means—making surface-level changes without addressing the deeper power structures that enable predominantly white executives and narratives.

These surface-level adjustments (i.e. reading lists by [insert race] writers) also turn racial identity into a card to play. It becomes a driving force for how writers market themselves and are marketed. It’s the thing they stake a career on.

Michael Derrick Hudson / Photo courtesy of Poetry Foundation

And it’s the thing that white people have learned how to weaponize. White poet Michael Derrick Hudson wrote a poem that was rejected 40 times. Then, when he submitted it under the pen name Yi-Fen Chou, the poem was rejected only nine times before being accepted. It was even published in the 2015 edition of Best American Poetry. 

Indigenous author Sherman Alexie, who guest-edited the anthology, admitted to being “more amenable to the poem because [he] thought the author was Chinese American.” He noted that there are “many examples of white nepotism inside the literary community,” and that he was “also practicing a form of nepotism. I am a brown-skinned poet who gave a better chance to another supposed brown-skinned poet because of our brownness.”

It’s easy to just call Alexie a nepotist (by his own words) and leave it at that. He did something wrong. He gave an underrepresented writer a better chance just because they were underrepresented, and that’s unfair to other writers who might’ve had equally good work.

But it’s also easy to see where he’s coming from. Systemic inequalities are real and felt by BIPOC writers, and seeking to repair and address them where possible is, most optimistically, what diversity initiatives in publishing are all about. Alexie simply took that task upon himself and applied it to his judging process.

As he says, he was “practicing a form of literary justice that can look like injustice from a different angle.” He claims that through this form of favouritism, he was trying to correct systematic biases in the poetry world. 

Regardless of where you stand in Alexie’s case, the situation opens up a larger conversation around quality and recognition as they intersect with race. Right now, due to the systemic barriers BIPOC writers face, it almost seems like this “literary justice” is the only solution. Lifting up underrepresented writers, whether their work automatically deserves it or not, seems justified.

But when we let race become an automatic stamp of quality, we run the risk of putting a BIPOC writer on a pedestal simply because they’re BIPOC. 

In a piece on Kenya Barris’s latest show #blackAF and the “dilemma of black criticism,” Tambay Obensen describes the pressure on Black critics to “avoid publicly critiquing work produced by black creatives, all in the spirit of a kind of racial solidarity.” 

But, as Obensen points out, Black critics “must continue to contextualize and debate their impact, especially in the midst of a creative resurgence in TV and film led by creators of color, like Barris and [Lena] Waithe.” 

The same principle applies to literature. A text that goes unchallenged simply because of the author’s background is not properly, fully engaged with. It’s a disservice not only to readers of the work, but to the author themselves.

Of course, this is where we return to the reality of race; often, what’s defined as “good” is deeply entwined with institutionalized racism and white supremacy. More often than not, representations of whiteness (by white authors) are equated with quality. Just look at the English canon (AKA all those books you were forced to read in high school).

On a list of “20 Indispensable High School Reads,” only five are by non-white authors / Photo courtesy of Edutopia

So rather than just publishing more BIPOC authors, we should lift up BIPOC critics as well. If we truly want to diversify publishing—especially to avoid the weaponization of the term—it applies to all fields that the publishing industry encompasses. 

These are all steps to establishing some kind of middle ground where race isn’t the most important thing about a writer and their work, nor is it a shield from any kind of criticism. It can still be acknowledged and celebrated, but BIPOC writers shouldn’t get published or lauded simply because they’re not white. 

Nor do BIPOC writers need to centre a “BIPOC experience” in their work for it to matter. If we want to promote diversity among books rather than just authors, we need to allow for a diverse range of stories as well. Being a BIPOC author shouldn’t mean you have to write about the trauma of racism or what it’s like to belong to the diaspora. You can if you want to (and it’s important work!), but that shouldn’t be all you’re expected to write.

Part of this work comes from the writing community as well; it’s up to authors to navigate the tension between representing an aspect of their identity and banking their career on it. We all have a responsibility to be truthful to who we are and what our experiences have been. But only we can decide how much of that truth we’ll use in our writing, and to what ends.

While BIPOC authors should still receive support in overcoming systemic barriers, they shouldn’t be tokenized and marketed as “diverse” as a shortcut for engaging with and thinking about their work on other levels. I’ve heard several BIPOC authors note that on panels, they’re rarely asked about their craft like their white counterparts; rather, they end up fielding questions about what it’s like to represent [insert race here] through their work. Just as they deserve to be fairly praised and criticized, they deserve to be seen as more than a minority.

I say all of this as a woman of colour. I don’t claim to speak for everyone like me, but I’m also someone who would, by these standards, be considered “diverse.” I could benefit from a system that wants to see me and value me in terms of my non-whiteness. But I don’t want to.

I want a future in which my work is published because it’s good, not because or in spite of the fact that I’m Asian. I want a future in which my work is criticized because it’s bad, not just praised because nobody wants to criticize a woman of colour. I want a future in which critics review my work without being hindered by any racial biases, whether those are in my favour or not.

I believe that a future with truly diverse literature means diversity beyond checking boxes. It means that in addition to having BIPOC characters, books are doing what they’ve always been doing: entertaining and provoking thought, emotion, and dialogues. 

It’s not just about meeting a quota. It’s about lifting up good stories, not just “diverse” ones.

I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of future I’d love to see.