Redlining Culture, just released from Columbia University Press, is generating buzz and conversation in traditional publishing circles after an op-ed appeared in The New York Times by its author, Richard Jean So.
So is an assistant professor of English and cultural analytics at McGill University; he set out to research how American fiction changed after World War II and whether it included more people of color. Rather than finding evidence of progress, So uncovered a persistent bias toward white authors between 1950 and 2000.
In his New York Times piece, co-written with Gus Wezerek, he extends the time frame further and looks at publishing data between 1950 and 2018. (The data source is WorldCat, a global catalog of library collections.) Their analysis is limited to titles held by at least 10 libraries; to those for which they could find digital editions; and to the most prolific publishing houses during the period (or, more or less what constitutes today’s Big Five).
Between 1950 and 2018, So found that 95 percent of fiction in their sample set was written by white people; in 2018, white people wrote 89 percent of the books in the sample. One of the more interesting findings relates to the work of Toni Morrison, the first Black editor hired by Random House. During her tenure (1967–1983), 3.3 percent of the fiction published by Random House was written by Black authors, but the numbers dropped off sharply when she left.
So offered further insights on Twitter, saying, “The historical argument I make is that we have misunderstood this period as one of rising multiculturalism, esp the ’80s and ’90s.” The data instead shows that the post-war period is defined by whiteness—and any progress that was made, such as by Morrison, was “ephemeral and passing.” On the bright side, publishing has made progress in gender equality; men and women reach parity by 2000. So says, “Scholars have largely missed this story of severe inequality because we’ve focused too much on individual authors/examples and not been able to see the entire literary field at scale.” You can read an excerpt of the book at Lit Hub.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
