Eminent group adds pens of Andrea Levy and Jean Rhys to its collection as it sets out to champion writers of colour
The late Andrea Levy, author of the award-winning Windrush novel Small Island, is to become the first writer of colour to have her pen join the Royal Society of Literature’s historic collection, which includes pens belonging to George Eliot and Lord Byron.
The eminent society, which was founded in 1820, periodically appoints new fellows deemed to have published works of “outstanding literary merit”. Fellows are then invited to sign their names in the society’s roll book, using the pen of a “historically influential” UK writer – either Charles Dickens (although his pen was retired in 2013), TS Eliot, Byron or George Eliot. Now, as the RSL sets out to champion the writers of colour with a series of new appointments and initiatives, it has added Levy to this list, alongside Wide Sargasso Sea author Jean Rhys.
Excellence is a constant project which needs updating. We can’t just judge everything by the criteria of George Eliot and TS Eliot
Related: Andrea Levy remembered by Bill Mayblin
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