In a new BBC Radio 4 podcast, Shadow World: Anatomy of a Cancellation, the BBC’s Culture Editor Katie Razzall revisits a story that rocked the UK’s publishing industry four years ago. It led to what some saw as the unjustified cancellation of a prize-winning writer and teacher – but to others, was a long overdue reckoning for the world of publishing. It grew into a culture war about race, class, and who has the right to say what.

In 2021, Kate Clanchy found herself in the eye of a Twitter storm after posting a negative review from the website Goodreads of her memoir – Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me – based on decades of teaching students from marginalised backgrounds in UK state schools. The review accused her book of using racist language. Kate rejected this – and initially posted the review onto Twitter to call attention to what she saw as inaccuracies – but soon, more critics started to publicly call the language in her book racist, ableist and classist.

Just the year before, the same memoir had won the prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Writing. When it was released, it was praised for offering a raw and human portrait of the realities of teaching. But in a matter of months, Kate Clanchy went from literary doyenne to cultural outcast. Her career, she says, destroyed.

For many who were involved in this story, these events changed their lives. Today, Kate Clanchy still feels she was treated unfairly. Her critics believe they were right to call her out.

Told forensically across six episodes, and with the benefit of time and distance, the series unpacks the events that took place from a range of different perspectives, drawing out themes that are still very much alive in our culture today, and hearing from some who have never spoken publicly. The series reveals internal emails that have never been made public before, alongside interviews with Kate Clanchy, her critics, a former pupil, a sensitivity reader who reviewed the manuscript after the initial furore, industry peers and writers who defended her.

At its core, the series asks: how do we navigate difference in our society? Who can tell whose stories – and how? To what degree has social media changed the ways that disagreements and arguments are prosecuted? And in our algorithm-driven world, does the punishment always fit the crime? The series also asks whether publishing has learned anything from what happened – both in giving voice to a broader range of authors, and in relation to the debate over free speech, and the right to offend.

Katie Razzall says: “As culture editor, I have seen how social media has brought new perspectives into the mainstream and amplified voices that haven’t felt heard before. I’ve also watched as the debate ramped up on who decides what’s acceptable – what authors write, how they write and who they write about. On platforms where nuance is often lost, there can be a high price to pay on all sides. Anatomy of a Cancellation goes behind the headlines to encourage honest conversations and uncovers surprising revelations about what happened.”

Daniel Clarke, BBC Radio 4 Factual Commissioning Editor, says: “This fascinating and important series from Katie dissects a scandal that buffeted publishing. Hearing at length from those at the centre of it creates space for nuance, and honesty, and poses difficult questions about so many of the most divisive issues that we face as a society. It also helps us to understand how competing narratives can emerge in the search for truth.”

Shadow World is BBC Radio 4’s home for investigations and original serials that expose surprising and important revelations about the UK today. Every podcast in this series combines world-class BBC journalism with edge-of-the-seat storytelling.

Listen to all episodes of Shadow World: Anatomy of a Cancellation on BBC Sounds on Wednesday 12 November. It will also air weekly on BBC Radio 4 from 12 November at 9.30am. Read the latest from Katie Razzall on the story here.

Presenter: Katie Razzall

Producer: Charlotte McDonald

Additional production: Octavia Woodward

Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison

Sound design and mix: James Beard

Story editing: Meara Sharma

Series editor: Matt Willis

Commissioning executive: Tracy Williams

Commissioner editor: Daniel Clarke

A BBC News Long Form Audio production for Radio 4.

IA

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