An Analysis Of Lionel Shriver's Speech At The Brisbane Writers

My debut novel is out today. Centered on a fictional riot in contemporary Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, it’s told from the perspectives of characters of various ages, genders, economic classes, sexualities, and, most notably, races. I’m a straight white man, and when I began to tell people about my novel, reactions tended to fall across the spectrum from “What have you gotten yourself into?” to “Who do you think you are?”

This was just about the same time as Lionel Shriver’s speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival in which she mocked how sensitive some readers were about cultural appropriation. After seeing reactions to mere descriptions of my novel, what struck me most about the argument over Shriver’s speech was not either side’s case—one side warning

Critics reacted harshly, and “By the early 1990s, the idea of cultural ownership had metastasized into a fully articulated code of conduct, loosely gathered under the umbrella of political correctness,” where authors were frightened into exclusively documenting their own

On the contrary, Bonfire is a perfect example of a novel that suffers because its white author is unwilling to write from a Black first- or close third-person point of view. All three perspectives from which a reader experiences Wolfe’s dystopic vision of race and class in 1980s New York are those of white professional men. Wolfe doesn’t extend the empathy necessary to inhabit any of the Black or female voices the novel relies on for its emotional