Lit in colour was created in 2020 by Penguin Books UK and race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust.
The aim of this project is to support schools in the UK to make the teaching and learning of English literature more inclusive. This includes commissioning research to better understand barriers and possible solutions, as well as providing practical support including book donations, free teaching resources and more.
Research conducted for this project has found that there is systematic underrepresentation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers in the school curriculum, relative to both to their place in contemporary British literary excellence and compared to the demographics of the school population.
Penguin’s mission is to ‘make books for everyone, because a book can change anyone’, yet there are barely any young people being given the opportunity to read and study books by Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers. The call for
greater access to literature that represents and celebrates the young people who populate our classrooms couldn’t be louder!
