Perhaps now, instead of telling a writer to change the ethnicity of his or her characters, publishers are simply rejecting those stories for publication? I don’t want to believe it, but with big publishing that might very well be true. I don’t want to believe that the success of a black writer is dependent upon he or she writing about race and oppression. I’m sure this shook up the industry, causing publishers who still maintained those antiquated beliefs to move forward with caution. You may remember the incident about Millenia Black, who had written a multiracial novel and was told by her editor that she had to make all of the characters black? This simply because she was a black author? Millenia sued the publisher and won. It’s all very ridiculous and tiresome Bernice McFadden Of course, those current events you mention do work themselves into my narrative in some way, shape or form. My stories do evolve organically, but this is not to say that I’m not influenced by my environment. While I’ve tackled a variety of different topics in my novels (domestic abuse, child molestation, alcoholism and so on) as of late, my primary focus has been historical fiction as relates to the African American experience. I’ve published with three different houses and not once did I have an editor tell me what I should or should not write.

I reached out to three prominent black writers to share their thoughts.īernice McFadden: ‘Never has an editor told me what to write’ Is success defined only by whether black writers write about race? Or, is there room for a diversity of stories that don’t necessarily align with race issues? This implies a direct link between the authenticity of the literature and the sociological and political perspectives of African Americans.Īfter all, the recent evidence of police brutality and racial injustice against black people, and the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement, is likely one of the many reasons why Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me sits comfortably on the New York Times bestseller list. In fact, it’s commonly believed that “good” writing by black authors is birthed from oppression, and marginalization is viewed as a key marker for black literature. As black writers, are we bound to the race narrative? Many prominent thinkers in black literary criticism think so. Yet despite feeling empowered by these books, I often wonder if literature written by black authors, in order to be considered successful or even “good”, must address the social ills of the day.

Tananarive due series