Royal Society of Literature admits 40 new fellows to address historical biases

The 40 Under 40 initiative has chosen a diverse set of fresh fellows to reflect the ‘bold expressiveness’ of a new generation in institution that has been ‘overwhelmingly’ white and male

Nearly 200 years after it was founded, the venerable Royal Society of Literature is stepping away from its “overwhelmingly white, male, metropolitan and middle class” history, with the appointment of 40 new writing fellows under the age of 40, ranging from the award-winning Jamaican poet Kei Miller to the bestselling English novelist Sarah Perry.

The RSL’s 40 Under 40 initiative saw publishers, literary agents, theatres and author organisations put forward an array of names to a panel of RSL fellows, who were looking to honour “the achievements of Britain’s younger writers” with the selection of a new generation of fellows. Prior to the initiative, only three of the 523 fellows were under 40, with none under 30 and the average age being 70.

Bola Agbaje, Jenn Ashworth, Laura Bates, Jay Bernard, Emily Berry, Hannah Berry, Lucy Caldwell, Sophie Collins, Inua Ellams, Lara Feigel, Edmund Gordon, James Graham, Rosalind Harvey, Daisy Hay, Rachel Hewitt, Ella Hickson, Sarah Howe, Robert Icke, Lucy Kirkwood, Sabrina Mahfouz, Kei Miller, Nadifa Mohamed, Helen Mort, Barney Norris, Irenosen Okojie, Chibundu Onuzo, Vinay Patel, Sarah Perry, Lucy Prebble, Ross Raisin, Gwendoline Riley, Amy Sackville, Sunjeev Sahota, Warsan Shire, Deborah Smith, Polly Stenham, Sara Taylor, Adam Thirlwell, Eley Williams, Evie Wyld.

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