How the UK publishing industry has responded to Black Lives Matter

Books by black authors have topped bestseller charts in recent weeks. Next we must ask: who profits?

British journalist and writer Reni Eddo-Lodge speaks during a panel at the WOW Festival (Women of the World) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 18, 2018. - Following the election of Brazil's future president Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian feminist movements are seeking to unite to counterbalance the conservatism that is reappearing in the country. (Photo by Mauro PIMENTEL / AFP) (Photo credit should read MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)

After the recent Black Lives Matter protests, Instagram and Twitter feeds were filled with recommendations for books by black authors. As well as classics by the US writers James Baldwin and Maya Angelou, two contemporary British titles have been at the top of book-stack photos everywhere: Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, which won last year’s Booker Prize, and Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race (2017).

Bestseller lists from the first week of June show these posts are not purely performative: Evaristo has become the first woman of colour to top the paperback fiction chart (fellow Booker winner Marlon James is the only other writer of colour to have done so), while Eddo-Lodge is now the first black British writer at No 1 on the paperback non-fiction list (Why I’m No Longer… jumped 155 places from the previous week, according to data from Nielsen BookScan). These positions were maintained for a second week, with Eddo-Lodge now the first black British author to top the overall UK book chart.