“I don’t think there’s an audience for this” was a phrase that became familiar to Zakiya Dalila Harris when the work of lesser-known black writers was put forward at the New York publishing house she once worked at as an editorial assistant. This, she tells me, is simply one example of the coded exclusion that was commonplace during her three-year career in the all-too-white book business. In a perfectly poetic twist of fate, however, Harris would go on to leave that publishing company to finish working on her debut novel, which those same employers would try (unsuccessfully) to secure in a 14-way bidding war that would eventually land her a seven-figure book deal in the US a year later. “I know where everyone at the

Source: The Times May 28, 2021 10:52 UTC