Peepal Tree Press
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| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Book Publishing |
| Founded | 1985 |
| Founder | Jeremy Poynting |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Jeremy Poynting, Hannah Bannister, Kwame Dawes, Jacob Ross, Dorothea Smartt, Kadija Sesay, Adam Lowe (writer) |
Number of employees | 2 full-time, 10 part-time or freelance |
| Website | www |
Peepal Tree Press is a publisher based in Leeds, England, which publishes Caribbean, Black British, and South Asian fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and academic books.[1][2][3] Poet Kwame Dawes has said: "Peepal Tree Press's position as the leading publisher of Caribbean literature, and especially of Caribbean poetry, is unassailable."[4]
Peepal Tree publishes around 20 books a year, mainly from the Caribbean and its diasporas.[5] Caribbean Beat has called it a "publishing lifeline" for Caribbean writers.[6] In the UK, the press is noted for its success with literary prizes,[7][8][9] its international readership,[10] and its role in supporting and publishing Black British and British Asian writers.[11][12]
Peepal Tree Press was first conceived in 1984, after a paper shortage in Guyana halted production of new books in the region. It was officially founded in 1985, and was named after the sacred peepal trees transplanted to the Caribbean with Indian indentured labourers, after founder Jeremy Poynting heard a story of workers gathering under the tree to tell stories.[13] The Guyana Chronicle has said, "Peepal Tree Press is responsible, in a major way, for the burgeoning of Guyanese literature".[14]
The press is based in Yorkshire, part of the growing independent publishing sector outside London,[7][8][9] at 17 King's Avenue, in a residential part of Burley, "a rundown, multicultural part of Leeds".[5][15] Its work is part-funded by Arts Council England[16] and was included in their 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2023 National Portfolios (prior to this, the company was a Regularly Funded Organisation from 2006).[17][18] Peepal Tree was initially one of only two publishers of primarily Black-interest titles funded by the Arts Council.[19]
Peepal Tree Press has published more than 450 titles, and maintains a commitment to keeping them in print.[20] The focus of Peepal Tree Press is "on what George Lamming calls the Caribbean nation, wherever it is in the world",[13] though the company is also concerned with Black British writing and South Asian writers of British or Caribbean descent.[21][22] The list features new writers and established voices, as well as posthumous work from Caribbean writers such as Mahadai Das, Neville Dawes, Anthony McNeill, and Gordon Rohlehr.[15][3] The press' stated approach is to publish (and republish) "Not best sellers, but long sellers".[15][23] This remit includes translations of French, Spanish and Dutch Caribbean writers, as well as English-language writers.[15]
Peepal Tree Press has published, in various forms, such writers as Roger Robinson, Bernardine Evaristo, Anthony Kellman, Kwame Dawes, Christian Campbell, Jacob Ross, Kei Miller,[24] Christine Craig, Opal Palmer Adisa, Angela Barry, Ishion Hutchinson, Dorothea Smartt,[25] Alecia McKenzie, Una Marson, Shivanee Ramlochan, Jack Mapanje, Patience Agbabi, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Daljit Nagra, Grace Nichols, Lemn Sissay, John Agard, Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo, Raymond Antrobus, Keith Jarrett, Rishi Dastidar, Gemma Weekes, Pete Kalu, Maggie Harris, Courttia Newland, Jackie Kay, Jan Lowe Shinebourne, and Kamau Brathwaite.[26][27][28] It is a core member of the Northern Fiction Alliance—alongside Comma Press in Manchester, Dead Ink in Liverpool and And Other Stories in Sheffield—which aims to raise the profile of UK publishing outside of London and in the North of England.[29][30]
History
After World War II, UK publishers such as Heinemann, Longman and Faber developed various English-language African, Caribbean and Asian writers series. In 1970, James Currey and Heinemann Educational Books (HEB) launched the Caribbean Writers Series to republish notable Caribbean writers, modelled on its earlier African Writers Series (1957) and Writing in Asia Series (1966).[31][32][33] The UK was often considered better placed to sell to places such as the Caribbean because of its "ex-colonial" profile. These were academic lists, and so the books were often expected to be representative of a nation or culture.[34][35]
1960s–1980s
In the mid-60s, Leeds had a literary scene which attracted writers from around the world.[36] During this period, Peepal Tree Press' founder Jeremy Poynting befriended Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o at the University of Leeds, who inspired his interest in Caribbean literature. At that point a lecturer in further education and a trade unionist, this friendship led Poynting to pursue a PhD in Caribbean literature at the University of Leeds. He first visited the Caribbean in 1976 as part of his research.[13][20][23]
In the 1970s, Poynting was a frequent visitor at New Beacon Books, run by John La Rose and Sarah White.[37] La Rose and White were also involved in the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) and organised the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books with Jessica Huntley of Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications.[21] According to Gail Low, these organisations blurred the boundaries between book shop, publisher and community activism, which was common among the grassroots publishing collectives of the 70s and 80s.[37] During this time, Poynting would also become a regular contributor to Wasafiri.[19] These relationships would, Poynting says, lay the foundation and inspiration for what would become Peepal Tree Press.[21]
By the 1980s, the Caribbean titles published in the UK were already at risk, as marketing to overseas audiences was considered unprofitable.[34] Heinemann, for instance, was acquired by British Tyre & Rubber, which sold its Social Sciences list to Gower Press in Aldershot. Gower Press subsequently cancelled the Caribbean World Series in 1984.[35]
That same year, while visiting Guyana, Poynting saw local writer Rooplall Monar acting out some of his stories in the ruins of the Lusignan sugar estate.[14] Forbes Burnham's authoritarian regime had led to a paper shortage in the country, so publishing opportunities in Guyana were slim. When Monar despaired that they would never see print, Poynting decided to publish the stories back in the UK.[21][14]
In 1985, Poynting printed Monar's Backdam People at Thomas Danby College, where he worked. Though publishers such as Heinemann and Longman had moved away from Caribbean books,[38][35] this first title nevertheless sold out its modest print run of 400 copies at the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books.[21][13]
The name chosen for the new press was intended both as a pun (as a homophone for "people") and as a symbol of the diaspora. It is named for the holy bodhi tree, brought as seeds by indentured Hindu workers to the Caribbean, where it became nativised. The tree thus represents something dispersed that sets down roots in a new location. At the time, Indians in some parts of the Caribbean were also politically and socially marginalised, so the name was also a political reminder of the Caribbean's diversity.[13][14][6]
1990s
With the help of his son, Poynting moved production to his home garage, using a second-hand Rotaprint offset printer held together with an elastic band and a folding machine paid for with an Arts Council grant (in their 1991/2 funding cycle).[14][19] Sales were largely via mail order, book fairs and independent bookshops (such as New Beacon) in the UK and Caribbean, but prices were low and the quality of books remained high.[39][21][19] Despite one local Caribbean bookseller leaving the region with her unpaid debts, the press was able to continue.[21][13] Eventually Poynting moved operations to a property at 17 King's Avenue in Burley.[40][6]
After the Arts Council offered him a subsequent development grant in their 1992/3 funding cycle,[19] Poynting went part-time in his job at Thomas Danby, producing books with the remainder of his week. Peepal Tree also received a grant from the Centre for Research in Asian Migration at the University of Warwick (CRAM). To subsidise the literary publishing, Poynting took on commercial print jobs.[6][39]
In 1994, Hannah Bannister joined the company, initially as an intern, helping to expand the business and becoming its Operations Manager.[41] The press published two notable debut poetry collections that year: Bernardine Evaristo's Island of Abraham[42][43] and Kwame Dawes' Progeny of Air.[4]
Kwame Dawes had submitted to the press without seeing any of its books, based on the recommendation of Edward Baugh. Although Dawes' Resisting the Anomie was written and contracted first, Peepal Tree's small list, team of two, and on-site printer meant they could produce Progeny of Air faster than Fredericton could publish Dawes' first book. Dawes was pleased with how thorough Poynting's editing was and his commitment to publishing Caribbean writers, not just Caribbean books. He decided to work with Peepal Tree for his future books.[4]
In 1995, a small group of business-minded friends and supporters, including Caribbean poets Ian McDonald and Ralph Thompson, helped turn the press into a limited company.[5][44]
In 1996, Peepal Tree published writer and school teacher Beryl Gilroy's In Praise of Love and Children, which she had written in the 1960s but had struggled to get published. The press would go on to publish all her subsequent work.[45] It was only around this time that Poynting quit his lecturer position and became Managing Editor full-time.
2000s
In 2004, Peepal Tree Press launched its Inscribe programme to widen the press' "adaptive development services" for writers of African and Asian heritage in the UK. Dr Kadija George and Dorothea Smartt were hired to lead the programme.[10]
In 2006, Peepal Tree became one of the Arts Council's Regularly Funded Organisations. With an increased budget, Kwame Dawes came on board as a guest editor.[6]
In 2009 the press launched the Caribbean Modern Classics Series, which restores to print important books from the 1950s onwards, such as Edgar Mittelholzer's My Bones and My Flute,[27] George Lamming's Water with Berries,[28] Una Marson's Selected Poems[46] and Seepersad Naipaul's Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales.[20]
2010s
By 2010, due to advances in digital printing, the press was able to completely cease its print activities and focus more on its editorial and publishing work. To support this expanded work, Kwame Dawes took a permanent role as associate poetry editor, while novelist Jacob Ross joined the press as associate fiction editor. Poet Adam Lowe also joined the press, on an Arts Council placement, handling social media and publicity.[47][41] Echoing Dawes' relationship with the press, though in reverse, both Ross and Lowe would also go on to be published by Peepal Tree.[48][49]
Since expanding, Peepal Tree has been involved in a number of partnerships. These include partnering with the Geraldine Connor Foundation on Windrush learning resources;[25] the Leeds Soroptimists and Ilkley Literature Festival for the SI Leeds Literary Prize; and Akashic Books, the Bocas LitFest, the Commonwealth Foundation and the British Council on CaribLit;[50][51] and Comma Press, And Other Stories and Dead Ink on the Northern Fiction Alliance (NFA).[9][52][29]
In 2015, the University of the West Indies (Mona) awarded Jeremy Poynting an honorary D. Litt. for services to Caribbean letters. In 2016, Bocas LitFest in Trinidad presented him with the Henry Swanzy Award. In 2018, he was elected as a fellow to the Royal Society of Literature.[53]
2020s
In 2020, Peepal Tree published academic Corinne Fowler's Green Unpleasant Land, which was selected by Bernardine Evaristo as an Observer Best Books 2021.[54] The book was the target of a negative campaign by the Conservative Party's Common Sense Group and Restore Trust for exploring connections between the British countryside and the empire.[55] This was part of a wider campaign against the National Trust's Colonial Countryside project.[56][57] Dominic Davies of City, University of London, described the campaign as an "hysterical reaction" that nevertheless validated the book's central argument.[55]
In 2020 and 2021, Peepal Tree authors won several notable awards, including the T. S. Eliot Prize and Ondaatje Prize (both for Roger Robinson's A Portable Paradise) and the Costa Prize (for Monique Roffey's The Mermaid of Black Conch).[58][59][22]
