The Guardian recently published an article about Peepal Tree's history, after Nesrine Malik spoke with Jeremy Poynting and Jacob Ross. "Peepal Tree is a rare story of an independent publisher that has not only survived and thrived, but stayed close to its roots," Nesrine writes. Jeremy talks about the history of the press, while Jacob talks about mentoring artists, writing for a Caribbean perspective, and why commercial publishing doesn't always serve Caribbean and Black British writers.
Ross tells me that The Mermaid of Black Conch, written by Monique Roffey, and which won the Costa prize, had 12 or 13 rejections before Peepal Tree published it. This is where Peepal Tree distinguishes itself, he says, by being close enough to the subject matter to see its appeal in a way that more mainstream publishers cannot. The book was “set in the Caribbean, on issues that are quite particular to the colonial and postcolonial experience, it was a fable”, the sort that Peepal Tree grasped.
