British Asian Writers

The Bookseller have published an article on their website, on the reading habits of the British South Asian community (http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/feature/136096-an-untapped-market.html). The thrust of the article is that British Asian writers tend to do well in sales and winning awards, but that there is only a handful of them. When I launched Seven Earths eJournal with the Brother’s Anwar, I was asked by a journalist whether Asian writers found it more difficult to get published. I guess it depends on the writer. Z Anwar has been successful in getting stories and reviews published, but hasn’t really had much joy from the higher paying magazines. I myself have been struggling to find an editor or an agent to read my manuscript, but then I put that down to the recession and trends in publishing rather than discrimination. Is there discrimination in publishing? I think only people in that part of industry would be able to answer that question. On the face of it, aside from literary writers, there isn’t really that many genre fiction writers who are South Asian. I’ve always held the opinion that ‘literary’ fiction types reinforce stereotypes and whore out their culture a little bit to get the kudos, but that’s just my opinion (White Teeth and Brick Lane anyone?). I suspect if there were more British Asian genre fiction writers, there would be more Asians reading them too. Why do you think?