A satirical novel which explores representation, cultural appropriation and the publishing industry is among the winners at the Indie Book Awards 2024. Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang, which follows an author who steals her rival’s final manuscript after she dies in a freak accident, picked up the prize in the adult fiction category. Katherine Rundell won the non-fiction prize for her book The Golden Mole: And Other Vanishing Treasure while author Hiba Noor Khan and West End star Robert Tregoning were awarded in the children’s fiction and picture book categories.
Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang (Indie Book Awards/PA) “It means a lot to me that Yellowface, which is so critical about the way we select and talk about books, has received such a warm welcome. “I take this to indicate that we are all frustrated with a publishing ecosystem that commodifies identity, that limits representation to one or two exhausting examples, that tells marginalised authors the only thing interesting about them is their pain. “So, let’s cheers to the readers and booksellers and book lovers who are chasing stories not to confirm our own presumptions, but because we care about what someone not like us has to say.
” The novel has already won a number of prizes including the British Book Awards and Foyle’s fiction book of the year gongs. The Golden Mole by Katherine Rundell (Indie Book Awards/PA) “I owe so much of my career to the championing of independent bookshops: to the generosity, im.
