Writer Lionel Shriver, best known for her novel “We Need To Talk About Kevin,” has lost her spot as a judge for a writing contest after she published a column in the Spectator mocking a diversity drive in Britain’s division of Penguin Random House. Shriver was responding to an email she’d seen, sent to at least one agent, saying that the company’s goal was to have its authors and employees “reflect the U.K. population taking into account ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility and disability.” In a column published in the Spectator, Shriver sharply criticized Penguin Random House. “Drunk on virtue, Penguin Random House no longer regards the company’s raison d’être as the acquisition and dissemination of good books,” Shriver wrote. “Thus from now until 2025, literary excellence will be secondary to ticking all those ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual preference and crap-education boxes.” Shriver added, “We can safely infer ... that if an agent submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter,” she continued, “it will be published, whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling.” Advertisement British literary magazine Mslexia responded to Shriver’s comments by removing her from a panel tasked with judging a writing contest. When the Guardian asked her about it, Shriver, an American expatriate, defended her column and denied that she was opposed to diversity. “The U.S. has had much more experience with affirmative action (positive discrimination) than the U.K., and the policy has had unfortunate consequences,” she said. “Even the U.S. has moved consistently away from numerical diversity targets.” Tom Weldon, the CEO of Penguin Random House U.K., defended the publisher’s diversity drive, writing, “We ... firmly believe that giving a platform to more diverse voices will lead to a greater richness of creativity and writing rather than stifling them.” “Talent and diversity are not mutually exclusive,” he continued. “Our goal for our new employees and authors to reflect U.K. society by 2025 is an ambition, not a quota. This is not about publishing writers purely because of who they are or where they come from. We publish —and will continue to — on talent first and foremost.” This isn’t the first time Shriver has courted controversy with comments about hot-button cultural issues. In 2016, speaking at the Brisbane Writers Festival in Australia, Shriver criticized the concept of cultural appropriation, saying she hoped it was a “passing fad.” Shriver, who is white, delivered parts of the speech while wearing a sombrero. “What stories are ‘implicitly ours to tell,’ and what boundaries around our own lives are we mandated to remain within?” she said. “I would argue that any story you can make yours is yours to tell, and trying to push the boundaries of the author’s personal experience is part of a fiction writer’s job.”<doc-sep>Author Lionel Shriver has been dropped from the judging panel of a literary competition after blasting publishers Penguin Random House for their diversity policies. Shriver, who won the 2005 Orange prize for We Need to Talk About Kevin, was due to judge the 10th Mslexia short story prize. However, Mslexia, a British magazine for women writers, rescinded her invitation after she wrote an article for the Spectator slamming an email sent to Penguin Random House's literary agents. In the piece, titled When Diversity Means Uniformity, Shriver criticised the publisher’s "new company-wide goal" for "both our new hires and the authors we acquire to reflect UK society by 2025." Shriver, 61, wrote: "The email proudly proclaims that the company has removed 'the need for a university degree from nearly all our jobs' – which, if my manuscript were being copy-edited and proof-read by folks whose university-educated predecessors already exhibited horrifyingly weak grammar and punctuation, I would find alarming." The author claimed that "drunk on virtue, Penguin Random House no longer regards the company’s raison d’être as the acquisition and dissemination of good books. Rather, the organisation aims to mirror the percentages of minorities in the UK population with statistical precision. Thus from now until 2025, literary excellence will be secondary to ticking all those ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual preference and crap-education boxes."<doc-sep>Lionel Shriver’s blistering assertion that, “drunk on virtue”, Penguin Random House is putting diversity ahead of literary excellence has been dismissed by the publisher, which said on Monday that “books shape our culture, and this should not be driven only by people who come from a narrow section of society”. Writing in the Spectator, Shriver took issue with an email sent by the publisher, which lays out its goal that by 2025, its authors and staff will reflect the diversity of UK society. The email said: “We want our authors and new colleagues to reflect the UK population taking into account ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility and disability.” Shriver wrote that this meant “we can safely infer … that if an agent submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter, it will be published, whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling”. She added: “Drunk on virtue, Penguin Random House no longer regards the company’s raison d’etre as the acquisition and dissemination of good books. Rather, the organisation aims to mirror the percentages of minorities in the UK population with statistical precision. Good luck with that business model. Publishers may eschew standards, but readers will still have some.” But Penguin Random House stood by its aims. “Our company-wide goal is driven by our strong belief that the books we publish should reflect the diverse society in which we live,” said the publisher, stressing that while it acquires all its authors “on talent, first and foremost”, it also believes it needs to do more “in actively seeking out talented writers from communities under-represented on the nation’s bookshelves”. It has recently launched the WriteNow programme, which aims to find writers from diverse backgrounds, and is recruiting staff “on talent and potential, not qualifications or former experience”. “We firmly believe that giving a platform to more diverse voices will lead to a greater richness of creativity and stories, rather than stifling them,” it said. Abir Mukherjee has just published the detective novel Smoke and Ashes, and is spearheading a new competition to find debut crime writers from BAME backgrounds. He was clear that “the playing field isn’t level … What PRH is doing is making it easier for hugely talented individuals from marginalised parts of our society to have their voices and their stories heard – not only those from minority groups, but white working-class voices too. This is about better reflecting the country we live in and publishing books that appeal to a wider cross-section of society, rather than tokenism or box-ticking.” Author Candice Carty-Williams called Shriver’s comments “deeply embarrassing” on Twitter, adding: “While this belief of hers can only really come from a place of deep insecurity and fear of becoming obsolete, it also shows that she thinks that people of colour … don’t write good books.” Novelist Meena Kandasamy, who was on the 2018 shortlist for the Women’s prize for fiction – an award won by Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin – suggested that “someone should do ironic blurb stickers that say ‘An incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling – Lionel Shriver’ which diverse writers could dutifully display on their books as a reminder of the hostile environment in which they function”. Jack Monroe wrote on Twitter: “Writers from the margins: LGBT, BAME, disabled, working class etc, have to work TEN TIMES AS HARD to break into publishing because it is still largely controlled by STRAIGHT WHITE MEN”. Shriver, who has expressed similar opinions in the past, was supported by Toby Young, who wrote on Twitter that “the problem with Penguin’s new, virtue-signalling inclusion policy is that any BAME, gay, trans or female authors it publishes from now on will worry that they haven’t been chosen on merit, but because they tick a diversity box”. Young, the son of a Labour peer who intervened when Young failed to get a place at Oxford University, and who more recently stepped down from a position on the board of the Office for Students after widespread anger at his appointment, was taken to task for the comment by Labour MP David Lammy, who suggested: “If you are aware of anybody who has been given a job for any reason other than merit, for example someone who has been appointed to sit on the board of the Office for Students, please alert [Toby Young] to this injustice immediately.”<doc-sep>
American novelist and journalist Lionel Shriver has been dropped as a literary contest judge in Britain after she issued a scathing critique of Penguin Random House’s push to diversify its authors and staff. Penguin Random House recently announced that by 2025 its staff and author list would reflect the diversity of British society. In a piece for The Spectator, Ms. Shriver accused the multinational publisher of being “drunk on virtue.” “… Penguin Random House no longer regards the company’s raison d’être as the acquisition and dissemination of good books,” Ms. Shriver wrote. “Rather, the organization aims to mirror the percentages of minorities in the UK population with statistical precision. Thus from now until 2025, literary excellence will be secondary to ticking all those ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual preference and crap-education boxes.” She continued, “We can safely infer from that email that if an agent submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter, it will be published, whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling. Good luck with that business model. Publishers may eschew standards, but readers will still have some.” Penguin Random House issued a statement defending the new policy, saying they “recruit on talent and potential.” “Our company-wide goal is driven by our strong belief that the books we publish should reflect the diverse society in which we live. After all, books shape our culture, and this should not be driven only by people who come from a narrow section of society,” the publisher said, The Independent reported. “We acquire all our writers on talent, first and foremost. However, in setting this goal we recognized that we needed to do more in actively seeking out talented writers from communities under-represented on the nation’s bookshelves.” The Guardian compiled a sampling of authors who are slamming Ms. Shriver for the article, including novelist Meena Kandasamy, who suggested that “someone should do ironic blurb stickers that say ‘An incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling – Lionel Shriver’ which diverse writers could dutifully display on their books as a reminder of the hostile environment in which they function.” Meanwhile, Mslexia, a British-based magazine for women writers, fired Ms. Shriver as the sole judge of its annual short story competition, saying her comments were “not consistent” with its values, The Times reported. Announcement: following Lionel Shriver’s controversial comments on diversity in publishing, we have decided to remove her as the judge of our 2018 Short Story Competition. — Mslexia (@Mslexia) June 12, 2018 Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.