Will Publishing’s Diversity Gains Last?

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After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, the United States experienced what was widely referred to as a “reckoning” with racism. The book industry was not exempt—pushed by protests against what employees called the industry’s “role in systemic racism,” major publishers promised to confront their overwhelming whiteness by hiring employees of color and acquiring books by nonwhite authors.

This week, by the English professors Dan Sinykin and Richard Jean So, in which they reflect on a survey they conducted from 2019 to 2023 that tracks the proportion of novels published by white versus nonwhite authors. They found that published works of fiction by nonwhite authors more than doubled in the period studied—but noted that similar waves