Last year, The Observer reported that male writers are increasingly absent from literary prize shortlists and fiction catalogues, while one publisher acknowledged that “if a really good novel by a male writer lands on my desk, I do genuinely say to myself, ‘This will be more difficult to publish.’”
Others narrow the issue further. In 2020 The Times reported one publisher as saying it was “young white men” that were “really, really hard” to publish because “the culture doesn’t want to hear from them.” Earlier this year, Private Eye noted that white men were entirely absent not only from some major prize shortlists but also from the latest catalogues of several high-end literary fiction imprints.
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