All is not well in the Royal Society of Literature. It now transpires that the bosses of the prestigious 200-year-old organisation have resigned after a rather tumultuous year – and ahead of an AGM that could have seen a vote of confidence called by outraged former chairs, presidents and directors. The reason for the widespread unhappiness within the group? Frustration over diversity hires and growing concerns about censorship. Not even our literary societies are safe, eh?
Chairman Daljit Nagra and director Molly Rosenberg have resigned in the face of growing criticism of their tenure at the RSL. The organisation’s leadership has had a litany of complaints levelled at it, including claims it has failed to defend writers dealing with physical or online attacks, like Salman Rushdie. It has also been accused of censorship, with one oft-cited example the society’s postponement of its annual Review – allegedly over worries about an article discussing Israel’s actions in Gaza. The publication’s well-liked and long-established editor Maggie Fergusson was sacked thereafter – while a number of RSL fellows remain baffled by the organisation’s denial of censorship over the piece.
In a mind-boggling move, the RSL’s management told former president Dame Warner and ex-chair Lisa Appignanesi that publicly voicing support for Rushdie after his near-fatal stabbing in 2022 ‘might give offence’. The Times also noted that when Kate Clanchy was let go by her publisher after receiving a barrage of online abuse, the RSL refused to stand up for her. In fact one of her most prominent detractors was actually elected to the organisation in one of the leadership’s ‘diversity’ drives. You couldn’t make it up…
Renowned writers like Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro were among those who have been raising concerns about the direction in which the society was heading – with the Charity Commission eventually brought in to investigate. But the problems don’t end there.
There are further concerns revolving around the RSL’s more recent ‘inclusivity initiatives’. Before these were brought in, prospective fellows were only eligible for nomination if they had published two collections of ‘outstanding literary merit’. But writers are increasingly worried about the dilution of talent in the organisation to meet diversity goals, with Don Paterson remarking that all that one new fellow seemed to have published was ‘a single poetry pamphlet’. Novelist Amanda Craig added that while the society might have once been seen as ‘a bit too pale, stale and male’, now new additions meant it was ‘no longer the kind of distinction that it was’. What a mess…
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