The role of independent publishers in driving lasting change in international literature continues to be one of the main narratives when it comes to the longlist of the International Booker Prize.
The established 'Big Five' of the publishing sector are increasingly being sidelined by their younger rivals according to data covering the past five years.
Women authors are now frequently outnumbering their male counterparts, while authors from the Americas have more than doubled at the expense of those from Asia and especially Europe.
These are some of the findings of a new report by an expert in publishing and translated fiction at the University of Exeter, who has been researching trends in the longlist for the International Booker Prize and its forerunners since 2001.
Dr Richard Mansell, Senior Lecturer in Translation, in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies, said the results from the past five years revealed continuing change in the sector.
"Many of the trends we identified in 2020 have maintained their trajectory, with the number of women authors outpacing men, and the share of titles from the Big Five dropping to a historic low," Dr Mansell said. "And it is within titles from independent publishers that we see the greater diversity and risk-taking."
Dr Mansell said that between 2020-24, women marginally outnumbered men on the longlist in four of the five years, and overall by 33 to 31.
The share of longlist from the Big Five - Penguin Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Pan Macmillan and HarperCollins - plunged from 55% in 2001-05 to 36% in 2016-19, and has now sunk further to just 26%. And within that, Penguin Random House dropped from first place to third, with the independent publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions becoming the most successful.
Books written in Spanish, French and German continue to be the best represented, but overall, Europe's share of the longlist dropped below 50% for the first time - while the Americas climbed to 22% over the period, solely through titles from independent publishers.
But Dr Mansell said that titles from the Big Five were still more likely to be from Europe and written by men. Male authors secured 11 of their 16 nominations, and in books originating within Europe, men were longlisted twice as often as women.
"What is clear is that the exciting changes in the translated fiction sector of the publishing industry are being driven by independent publishers, whether this is the increased number of women's voices or the increasingly diverse origin of longlisted titles," Dr Mansell concluded. "The well-known aversion to risk in many areas of the English-language publishing industry, especially in the larger groups, may well be both a cause and effect here, with independents seeking out riskier endeavours shunned by the larger houses, and then reaping the rewards, since these are the books attracting both judges and readers."
