Philip Pullman has added his voice to critics of the Carnegie medal, one of the UK’s most prestigious children’s book awards, after an exceptional year for books by black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) novelists failed to make a dent on its longlist. Writers of colour, led by Alex Wheatle and Sunny Singh, have called for a boycott of the award.
Despite strong showings by writers of colour in every other major children’s book prize this year, not one appeared on the 20-strong longlist for the CILIP Carnegie medal, which is chosen by librarians around the country. The Carnegie, which was established in 1935, has never been won by a BAME writer.
“It’s appalling. There is no other way to describe it,” said Wheatle, who won the 2016 Guardian children’s fiction prize with Crongton Knights. He added that he had instructed his publisher Hachette not to submit his forthcoming novel, Straight Outta Crongton, for next year’s prize.
Though the author was on the Carnegie medal nominations list of 114 books, alongside other BAME writers including Malorie Blackman and Patrice Lawrence, he slammed the failure of the judges to longlist any of them. “They are just ticking a box,” he said. “When it comes to the serious part of the award – the longlist and shortlist – we just aren’t there. We continue to submit our work every year and they treat us like this.”
Singh, who set up the Jhalak prize to tackle the lack of representation of British BAME writers in publishing, was furious at the snub: “I’m just looking at the Carnegie and thinking how is this OK?” she said, attacking claims on social media that the books were not good enough. “That argument is consistently repeated,” she said. “Are they really saying that in a year that had such extraordinary books from writers of colour?”
She called for white authors to pull out of the prize, saying: “There has to be collective action. It cannot just BAME writers against it, it has to be all authors. It’s all very well for already marginalised people to do a boycott, but if you are already excluded, what difference will it make to not enter?”
Support for Singh came from Philip Pullman, who won the Carnegie in 1995. “In every area of social and cultural and political life, people who aren’t white are regarded by the prevailing mindset as marginal,” he said. “I welcomed the recent awards of the Man Booker prize to Paul Beatty and Marlon James for that reason, and I’d very much welcome a more inclusive and thoughtful list from the Carnegie judges, because children’s books ought to be – as I’ve always argued – very much included in our discussion of books in general.”
Author Alan Gibbons, who has been Carnegie-shortlisted twice, said the omissions were a scandal: “Why has Malorie Blackman never won? Bali Rai, Leila Rashid, Alex Wheatle, Benjamin Zephaniah, Catherine Johnson, Candy Gourlay? It is high time the Carnegie reflected multi-ethnic Britain.”
The Carnegie is an important award to children’s authors because of its influence on what is stocked in school libraries. Jo Mead, who co-manages the Southwark book award, which is chosen by pupils in the south-east London borough, said: “The Carnegie prides itself on ‘reflecting the very real issues children have to deal with’ and supporting books ‘which help to make sense of the world’, and while the subjects covered by the list are very laudable, its blanket choice of authors excludes a very large part of the real world and its issues – certainly for my students in Peckham.”
A 2015 report by CILIP found that 96.7% library workers in the UK identify as white, almost 10% above the national workforce average in the UK Labour Force Survey.
Patrice Lawrence, whose novel Orangeboy has been shortlisted for a clutch of awards, including the 2016 Costa children’s book of the year and the Waterstones children’s prize, said the failure of BAME authors to make the cut in the Carnegie reflected a wider problem. “There is still a really big issue that if you are a white author who writes about black lives you get on [awards lists], but if you are a black author then you don’t,” she said. “It really comes down to the powerful role of gatekeepers in prestigious literary prizes. If they are not looking for diverse authors, there is an issue.”
Previous Carnegie winners that have focused on black lives include 2015’s Buffalo Soldier by Tanya Landman and The Other Side of Truth by South African writer Beverly Naidoo in 2000.
Nick Poole, CILIP chief executive, said that it “acknowledges and respects the concerns expressed” and added that the librarians choosing the longlist, shortlist and winner were committed to CILIP’s stated ethical principles, the first of which stipulates “concern for the public good in all professional matters, including respect for diversity within society, and the promoting of equal opportunities and human rights”.
“The books on the longlist are judged on merit and on an equal playing field. This year’s longlist represents, in the opinion of the judges, the very best books of the year, with no consideration of gender or ethnicity of either the writer, illustrator or audience,” said Poole. “The broad subject matter of this year’s longlist – stories about refugees, disability and migration – illustrates the breadth of range that the medals are known for.”
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