Rather, it is whether they do it well and the privilege that comes with being enabled to tell stories that writers of colour are routinely marginalised for.” “The issue isn’t whether or not are given the right to create characters of colour. “He has got to be top of the tree compared to his editor, compared to the rest of us, and he is in a position to make such a difference in the way that Ben Aaronovitch has.”Īuthor Courttia Newland said Horowitz’s intervention was an odd complaint, and cited a range of writers, from Maggie Gee to SJ Watson, who have black characters in their work. “The number of black debut writers published in the past year is barely in double figures,” she said. Instead of complaining, Horowitz was in a position to help black and Asian authors in the struggle for publication, she said. “I come from a background where I was working in equality for 20 years and as soon as you raise the difficulties faced by black people, you get someone saying, ‘But what about white working-class boys?’ This feels the same.” “It made me feel really angry when I heard this,” she added. “The whole issue of equality and diversity has been hijacked by white writers,” she said, arguing that prize shortlists were full of white writers whose work featured black characters. Lawrence, whose debut Orangeboy scooped the Waterstones children’s award for older children, said white writers’ fears of accusations of cultural appropriation if they created black of Asian characters was “a diversion”. Which was, I thought, disturbing and upsetting.” His publisher Walker Books has strenuously denied the claim. Describing the issue as “dangerous territory”, he said an editor told him that creating black characters who did not reflect an author’s own experience, was “by its very nature, artificial and possibly patronising. The controversy ignited last week when Horowitz claimed in a newspaper interview that he had been told it was inappropriate to include a black character. “Don’t pretend it’s political correctness gone mad.” “If you don’t feel confident or just don’t want to write black characters, just say so,” Aaronovitch tweeted. Writing on Twitter, he described as “bollocks” Horowitz’s claim that an editor told him that devising black characters could be “patronising” after he revealed plans to create a black as well as white protagonist in his latest children’s book. Aaronovitch, who has included black characters in his Rivers of London fantasy series, was alarmed by the news.
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