THIS WEEK
Feature Broadening the debate
Breaking out beyond the niche: ‘disabled literature’ should inform the mainstream
Author Frances Ryan shares her experiences of publicising her book, for which she fought to appear on mainstream political shows to flag the issues disabled people face
Frances Ryan @drfrancesryan
26 24th September 2021 W
hen my début book Crippled, a non-fiction title exposing the
impact of government cuts on disabled people in the UK, was published by Verso in 2019, I felt like I had a mantra on repeat: “Disabilit is a mainstream issue.” I was very fortunate with the positive reception the book received. But throughout the process it struck me how oſten I had to convince people that disabilit was a mainstream subject, and that my book, and those like it, belong alongside commercial political titles (tpically writen by non-disabled authors).
By any definition, disabilit is far from niche. It’s the largest minorit in the world—one in five
people have some sort of disabil- it—and it will affect most of us at some point, and it interacts with the key issues of the day, from social care to coronavirus. And yet disabled literature is oſten sidelined in a way other books aren’t, buoyed by the myth that only those who are disabled could possibly be interested or learn something from it. Even when diversit is championed by the industry, it’s striking that disabilit is oſten the one minorit group that fails to make the cut (and intersectional stories, such as those by disabled people of colour, very rarely get mentioned.) This oversight has real consequences. It impacts what disabled authors are commissioned to write, and
if a disabilit-centred book is commissioned, it impacts which readers it’s aimed at, and how (or if) it is promoted.
Looking up
The good news is that change is more than possible. Representation on bookshelves starts in the publish- ing industry, so geting more disabled people into positions of power is key; a 2020 Publishers Association survey found only 8% of the workforce identified as having a disabilit. Change will require practical measures, from ensuring internships at publish- ers are paid, offering remote or flexible working, to puting out job ads that explicitly ask for disabled applicants.
Ryan photography: Fabio De Paola
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