The Booker prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo has called for renewed efforts to diversify the school curriculum in England, warning that young people are growing up in a society where “doors are closing” and the tide is turning against inclusion.
There has been progress in the diversity of texts on offer in the GCSE English literature curriculum, but uptake in schools is still low with just 1.9% of GCSE pupils in England studying books by authors of colour, up from 0.7% five years ago, according to a report.
Compiled by the campaign group Lit in Colour, the report says progress is too slow and that at the current pace of change it will be 2046 before 10% of students answer a question about a text by an author of colour in their English literature GCSE.
And it will take until 2115 before 38% of pupils study a writer of colour in GCSE English literature, a figure that is significant because according to the Department for Education’s (DfE) most recent figures, 38% of pupils in English schools are from a minority ethnic background.
Since Lit in Colour launched its campaign to improve diversity in the school curriculum in England five years ago, the proportion of GCSE English literature set texts by authors of colour has increased from 12% to 36%.
In 2025 there were eight texts by authors of colour on exam board set text lists, mostly of Black and south Asian heritage, but many teachers continue to offer texts such as JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, because of familiarity, a lack of resources to support the teaching of new texts and insufficient time for training.
Writing in the foreword to the campaign’s five-year progress report, Evaristo welcomed the progress made but said that with the concept of diversity under attack, it was even more important to ensure books by writers of colour were on the curriculum.
After the murder of George Floyd in the US and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK, Evaristo said, “there was a noticeable willingness from many institutions to explore some of the barriers people of colour have had to face, including in the education sector”.
She said: “Fast forward to 2025 and it seems as if those doors are closing again, and I worry that young people today are once again growing up in a society where attempts to become more egalitarian are under threat, with the tide turning against inclusion.
“The term ‘diversity’ itself is now considered a dangerous concept in some quarters, with all attempts at becoming a more progressive society dismissed as ‘woke’. In this climate, the Lit in Colour campaign is even more essential to ensuring that books by authors of colour are on the curriculum.”
Lit in Colour, led by Penguin Random House and the Runnymede Trust thinktank on race equality and race relations, is a partnership between educational and cultural organisations and England’s four exam boards.
A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “As part of the government’s response to the curriculum and assessment review we will ensure that alongside classic English literature the curriculum will allow space for teachers to choose a wider range of texts and authors.”
Meanwhile, Lee Child, the bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series of thrillers, has been named as the first prison reading laureate. The role, which covers prisons in England and Wales, has been created to highlight the importance of improving literacy among prisoners to help prevent reoffending.
Child plans to expand a literacy pilot programme he has been running in a number of prisons and will be inviting more authors to participate.
“This isn’t about being soft on crime, it’s about being smart,” he said. “Improving literacy is an evidence-based, practical approach that works. When people leave prison better equipped to read and learn, they’re less likely to reoffend. That makes communities safer for everyone.”
The new one-year role has been created as part of the National Year of Reading, a UK-wide campaign to boost reading among children and adults.
