Myriad is delighted to congratulate publishing pioneer and New Daughters of Africa editor Margaret Busby on the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award 2021.

Myriad’s Publishing Director and Busby’s longtime editor Candida Lacey comments:

‘It is such a pleasure to congratulate Margaret on this richly deserved award. Margaret Busby is quite simply a living legend. She has touched and enriched so many lives, and dedicated her life to championing the work of others, and especially the work of under-represented writers and artists.

‘I first met Margaret 30 years ago when I commissioned her to compile Daughters of Africa (Cape, 1992), a landmark anthology that celebrated the work of over 200 women writers of African descent. With this anthology and its sequel New Daughters of Africa (Myriad, 2019), Margaret charted a literary landscape as never before and inspired a new generation to write their own stories.

‘The legacy of both anthologies is profound: not only has New Daughters of Africa inspired and helped to finance a student bursary in Margaret’s name at SOAS University of London, it has also launched the literary careers of several of its contributors.

‘This award could not be better-timed. Today sees Myriad’s publication of The Bread the Devil Knead, the debut novel by New Daughters contributor, Trinidadian Lisa Allen-Agostini. And on 10 June we’ll be publishing another debut by fellow contributor, Jamaican-born novelist Yvonne Bailey-Smith’s The Day I Fell Off My Island. Bailey-Smith, a psychotherapist, is also the mother of one of our best-known contributors, Zadie Smith.’

Launched at London’s Royal Festival Hall and celebrated at Somerset House and literary festivals from Hay and Edinburgh to Cape Town and Trinidad, New Daughters of Africa was published to international acclaim in 2019.