Bernardine Evaristo slams literature teaching for bias to 'whiteness and maleness'

Booker-winning novelist uses New Statesman/Goldsmiths prize lecture to attack ‘academics who still refuse to reassess their reading lists’

In the week in which it was revealed that many GCSE pupils never study a book by a black author, Bernardine Evaristo, the first black British author to win the Booker prize, has challenged “all those academics who value whiteness and maleness over other demographics”, saying they should feel ashamed.

In an excoriating speech for the New Statesman/Goldsmiths prize lecture, Evaristo slammed “all those academics who still refuse to engage with progressive conversations and reassess their reading lists”, saying that they were passing on their biases to the next generation of readers and thinkers.

Continue reading...