INTERVIEWS
Everyone needs support networks and systems to progress
should be going backwards in terms of visibility for these different groups? What’s your theory about it? Yes, you’re right. I believe that publishing has become too corporate, much too corporate. If I can give you an example: when I was first published by Harper Collins back in 2001, I had an editor who championed me: he went to the acquisition meeting and there were only about three people who attended, and he banged his fist on the table saying ‘I want to publish Alex Wheatle, I think he’s marvellous, I think he’s brilliant: I want to publish him’. Today, that same situation, the acquisition meeting would comprise about 16 people: international sales, international marketing, other editors, other people in the organisation, and then they’d have a committee and the editor would have to sell. Every single person would have to be convinced to acquire the novel and in many cases, even though they might agree that the novel is brilliant, the argument might be that it’s not commercial enough and I think that hurts BAME writers more than anyone else. The decision-making is gauged by: ‘Is it like Zadie Smith?’, ‘Is it like Andrea Levy?’, ‘Is it the same kind of narrative as that?’, ‘Ok, we know that sells. Let’s buy that’. But if anything different comes onto their table, they will get extra cautious about it; they are much more risk-adverse now than they were in 2001. It’s very sad to see because there are some very talented writers not being published, some very talented script writers not being commissioned because it’s ‘too different’, it’s ‘too other’, it’s ‘too this’, it’s ‘too that’, and I think BAME writing has suffered because of that.
Would you say the problem is only really going to get worse? It looks like it, until we change the housing policy. I have a daughter who’s 29 and she’s done all the right things: she did well at school, she did well at further education, and now she wants to buy a house somewhere but she’s finding it impossible because of the deposit she needs. There should be affordable housing so young people can start climbing the housing ladder. If you’re fortunate enough and your parents are aff luent enough they can provide the deposit for you, because £15,000 won’t do it: you’ve got to have 30, 45 grand even to just think about buying a place in most parts of London. And would you say this is really the fault of the older generations? Dr Cocks: It seems extraordinary that, at this point in time, when so much has been done in terms of raising awareness about access and visibility for black and working-class narratives that you think that things are getting worse in terms of visibility and representation and what’s available for people. It seems as though part of that is tied to the way that publishing works — publishing houses work — but also possibly markets. Do you think there is something else? Is there a bigger link to our politics or our social conditioning now that means, extraordinarily, in 2017, after all the liberationist movements from the 60s, 70s and through the 80s that we Yes, definitely, because they neglected it for so long, so yes, the blame lies at their door.
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