Where Has the Rock Star Male Novelist Gone?

Every decade Granta Magazine releases its list of the 20 best young British novelists. This year only four on the list are men. In 2013 there were eight men, in 2003 it was 13. I am sure you can picture the rest of the trend, all the way back to 1983 – a list that contained Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro and Julian Barnes. Male dominance on Booker Prize longlists is ebbing, too.

So what happened? Where has this archetype gone? The New Statesman this week laments the decline of the “literary bloke”. It sees a world that lacks the brooding character of Amis, a world where there is no equivalent Ishiguro or Ian McEwan.