Racial diversity of shortlists has increased since 1996, a year when no black authors were shortlisted
More than a fifth of the authors shortlisted for British literary prizes last year were black, a turnaround for an industry in which no black authors were shortlisted in four of the years between 1996 and 2009.
In 1996, there was not a single black author shortlisted in prize shortlists analysed by the Guardian, but that figure jumped to 21% in 2020.
