I have always found myself slightly outside of the publishing industry, looking in rather than being fully inside it. I have been freelance for more than three decades now, so I observe things rather than being embedded in them. And what I see is something that seems to go up and down, round in circles. At times it feels as if we are moving forward, and at other times it feels as if we are going backwards.
I was on a panel at a major book fair recently, and there was one with young people talking about different aspects of the industry. One of the things that came through very strongly was that we are still talking about diversity. And I find myself thinking, how long do we need to keep saying this? The world is diverse. That is simply the reality of it. And yet there are still surveys, still metrics, still questions about how many people of colour are here or there, as though inclusion is something exceptional rather than natural.
To me, it should not require special effort to include people. It should simply be the starting point. We are all part of the same story. That idea is central to me: I am the centre of my world, and so is everyone else. No one exists at the margins of their own life. So why do we continue to structure systems as though some people need to be brought in from the margins at all?
I often wonder why this is still the case. Why is it still so difficult for institutions to reflect the world as it actually is? I do not know the answer. I ask younger people what they think is going on. There are initiatives, of course, and many organisations are trying to do the right thing. But quite often it feels as though the burden of explanation still falls on the people who are already under-represented. They are asked to sit in meetings and explain what should be done to include them.
There is a line I once heard from the actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste that has stayed with me. She said: if I am not invited to your party, do not ask me why. That feels like a simple truth. The responsibility should sit elsewhere.
Perhaps what is needed is a deeper willingness to examine why things have not changed enough. Not to divide people into categories or silos, but to recognise that we are all part of something larger. I do not like the language we often use around diversity or ethnic minorities. It feels reductive. We are simply people who want to contribute to making the world richer, more open, more accessible. It seems obvious to me, and yet it remains such a persistent challenge.
Sometimes I look at the world and think about history more broadly, and I find myself asking difficult questions. Why did systems like enslavement exist at all? Why do we see patterns of exclusion repeated across time? Even now, when people speak about slogans like “Make America Great Again”, I find myself asking: which era are we actually referring to? It is never as simple as the phrase suggests.
I do not have neat answers. I am not sure anyone does. What I do have is a belief that we must place our hope in younger generations. And we must also be honest about the idea of “learning lessons”. People often say lessons will be learned when things go wrong. But I think the question is not whether lessons will be learned, but whether they are being learned quickly enough, and whether we are willing to acknowledge mistakes openly.
There is also a responsibility that sits with older generations. Not in a paternalistic sense, but in a practical one. We have lived through things. We have seen patterns repeat. And perhaps part of our role is to hand over some of that understanding, so that others do not have to make the same mistakes again.
Are we becoming more empathetic as a society, or less?
I do not spend much time on social media, so I cannot speak as an expert on it. But I do see the outcomes. And some of those outcomes are deeply distressing. One has to ask: are we becoming more empathetic as a society, or less? Are we able to recognise harm when it is in front of us? It is hard not to feel a sense of sadness about some of what is happening.
At the same time, I think about the book I first published, “The Spook by the Door” by Sam Selvon, which was reissued recently. It remains relevant. It deals with questions of visibility, performance, and who gets to belong in institutional spaces. And in many ways, that question has not gone away. There is still a sense, at times, that inclusion is something granted rather than something inherent.
What I return to again and again is the idea that no one is born knowing everything. We are shaped by our environment, by education, by what we are exposed to. And that means change is always possible.
I find myself wondering whether we are becoming more capable of empathy, or whether we are simply more aware of its absence.
I also think about the role of literature in all of this. Literature is one of the most powerful ways we have of sharing experience. It allows us to see into other lives, to understand perspectives beyond our own, and to imagine realities we may never inhabit ourselves.
But literature can also be restricted. It can be narrowed by gatekeeping, by assumptions about who writes and who is read. And that is when it loses its richness. Publishing should never be about narrowing possibility. It should be about expanding it. It is like saying you will only ever eat one kind of food. Even if it is something you like, it becomes limiting. A richer life is one that has variety, complexity, contrast. That is what literature should offer.
I think often about the early days of my own publishing work. I was young then, and I did not know the conventions of the industry. I did not know how many copies of a poetry book one was supposed to print, so I simply printed 15,000 copies because it seemed like a reasonable number. I did not realise it was considered too many. We were simply guided by energy and conviction rather than rules.
We did not have much money, but we had belief. We worked constantly, because we believed in what we were doing. There was a kind of boldness in that ignorance. When you do not yet know what is “impossible”, you simply try things.Looking back, I think that is what allowed things to happen.
A society thrives when older people plant trees under which they will never sit.
One of the most important ideas I have held onto is that it is better to act than to overthink what is permitted. You do what feels necessary, what feels right, and you trust that it matters.
Another idea I return to is that it is astonishing what you can accomplish when you do not care who takes the credit. If you are focused on recognition, you lose sight of the work itself. But if you are focused on the work, something else takes over entirely.
I also think about the idea of continuity between generations. A society thrives when older people plant trees under which they will never sit. That has always stayed with me. It is not about personal reward. It is about contribution, and about passing something forward that will be useful to someone else.
When I was a child, I learned three long words very early on: necessary, fascinating, and picturesque. They came from overhearing a lesson my brother was being given. And those words have stayed with me ever since. They became a kind of way of seeing the world.
Life, to me, should be necessary, fascinating, and picturesque. Literature, at its best, can reflect all three. It can also pass on ethics in a way that is not heavy-handed, but alive and engaging. That is its strength.
I have always believed that it is easy to be the first person to do something, but you do not want to be the only one. There is something far more powerful about creating pathways for others to follow. When someone says they were able to do something because they saw you do it first, that is not flattery. It is continuity.
I have seen that happen in my own work. In anthologies such as Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa, the aim was to bring together the work of women of African descent across generations, because so many had been excluded from the literary canon. The first volume brought together 200 writers. The second continued that lineage across centuries of work.
What mattered most was not only inclusion, but connection. One generation inspiring the next. Writers discovering they were part of something larger than themselves.
Even the award that emerged from those projects continues that principle, supporting a woman student from Africa to study at SOAS. It is another way of extending possibility into the future. There is a chain of influence that runs through all of this. And each link matters.
I often think about prizes in the same way. There is always a winner, but that does not mean the others are lesser. Many books could be chosen. Many voices deserve to be heard. The process is never purely objective. It is always contextual.
That is why breadth matters. The more voices we include, the more complete the picture becomes.
In the end, publishing is a strange combination of business, craft, and art. But at its best, it is also a force for good. It has the ability to change how people see the world.
This conversation took place in April 2026 and has been edited and condensed for clarity and flow.
