The supply, promotion and readership of minority ethnic English language fiction in the UK: a review of the literature

Abstract

Purpose: Written largely from a UK perspective, this paper presents a review of the literature regarding the nature of minority writing in the English language, and its supply, promotion and readership.Methodology/approach: Following an initial exploration of the diverse terminology used to describe such fiction, the main body of the review is structured according to the five potential elements of the minority ethnic fiction supply chain – the author, the book trade, the library supplier, the public library, the reader – with an attempt to bring together the principal academic and professional texts published on each subject.Results: This paper has raised two main issues of concern: firstly, that very little empirical research has been conducted into minority ethnic fiction – in particular regarding its readership, and secondly, that previous research has tended to focus on linguistic aspects of minority ethnic fiction stock provision and use, rather than on cultural aspects.Research limitation: Given the nature of the broader empirical research of which this review forms a part, the paper is almost entirely focused on English language fiction only.Originality/practical implications: Reviews in this field have not previously tended to take into account all five elements of the minority ethnic fiction supply chain, or in particular the readership of such fiction. These previous omissions have been addressed in the present paper.