Literature Meets Identity Politics: Lionel Shriver vs. Penguin-Random House

“Writers should be judged first by the quality of the content of their prose, not their identity. If we forget this, then the world of literature will be much poorer, and with the loss of this source of consolation, so will we all.”

Lionel Shriver is the author of books such as We Need to Talk About Kevin and others. Shriver is not afraid to write about difficult and often disturbing subjects. She is also not afraid to raise her head above the parapet on things that she does not agree with. Unfortunately, in these times of perpetual outrage and flaunting of hurt feelings, that is a recipe for trouble. Shriver has feared for some time that her outspoken opinions and her obstreperous attitude to cultural dogmas might land her in hot water; she specifically said in an interview with Ben Domenech that her writing in the Spectator magazine might be what brings the outrage mob down on her. And so it has proved.

On June 9, Shriver wrote a piece in the Spectator about her concerns regarding the publishing industry’s approach to the issue of diversity. Following an email from a colleague, she used a recent letter that outlined a new “company-wide policy” of Penguin-Random House for “both our new hires and the authors we acquire to reflect UK society by 2025” as a case-study for what she believes are the problems with this approach to hiring new employees and selecting new writers. She goes on to quote from the letter: “This means we want our authors and new colleagues to reflect the UK population taking into account ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility, and disability.” She then details the questionnaire that is sent to establish the permutations of the identity of each prospective author or employee to the nth degree.

As a result of her forthright objections to this new policy, Shriver has now been sacked from the panel of the Mslexia literary competition. Mslexia is a magazine for women writers—that is, for those women who take the correct line on the issues of the day. Meanwhile, the finalists of PRH’s diverse WriteNow scheme penned an open letter castigating Shriver for her supposed bigotry, asking, “Does she truly believe that diverse writers are incapable of penning good books? That women of color are incapable of working editorially?” One questions whether they’d actually read the article in question, as Shriver never said people of color were incapable of good writing, nor did she argue that women of color inherently lacked the aptitude for editorial work—quite the opposite, in fact.