Congratulations to Dr. John Coleman for the publication of his new article, “The Business Case for Diversity: Hari Kunzru’s Transmission as Commentary on Racialized Literary Promotions,” which has recently been published in Modern Fiction Studies. Coleman argues that Kunzru’s novel Transmission allegorizes the experiences of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) authors, implicitly querying Penguin’s self-branding as an antidote to racialized disparities in literary production. Transmission self-reflexively critiques the influence of publishing agents helping author postcolonial and similarly constructed niche genres of literature. Through this critique, the novel figures the distance a work’s nominal author has from controlling reception over their oeuvre and persona. Transmission is also canny about casting Penguin’s diversity initiatives as injecting sought-after authorial brands into the market, something Coleman‘s article also works to critique. As an open-access essay, Coleman’s essay is ready to read and enjoy.
Front cover of the Plume edition of Hari Kunzru’s Transmission