Cave, Coel and Sissay appointed Royal Society of Literature fellows

Nick Cave, Michaela Coel and Lemn Sissay have been elected as fellows to the Royal Society of Literature as part of the largest mass induction in the society’s history, with 148 writers and supporters of literature elected between 2020 and 2022 signing their names in the historic roll book. 

The appointments were announced at an event held at Battersea Arts Centre on 12th July, including the first induction of writers elected to fellowship through the Bicentenary RSL Open Initiative. Fellows signed their names using pens from the charity’s permanent collection, including those owned by Charles Dickens, George Eliot and T S Eliot, with Jean Rhys and Andrea Levy’s pens used for the first time.  

Newly elected president Bernardine Evaristo said: “Storytelling is at the heart of who we are as humans – it is how we understand, contextualise, mirror, examine, challenge, entertain and imagine life from multiple experiences and perspectives. We all deserve to be active and equal participants in the production and consumption of literature that is as wide-ranging as ourselves.” 

In total, 60 new appointments were made this year, comprising 44 new fellows and 16 honorary fellows. Of the 44 new fellows, 29 were the first induction of writers elected to fellowship through the bicentenary RSL Open initiative. To be nominated as a fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two fellows or honorary fellows. 

The new fellows include Cave, Coel and Sissay as well as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Michael Arditti, Claire Armitstead, Susie Boyt, Russell T Davies, Ferdinand Dennis, Bonnie Greer, Joanne Harris, Hannah Lowe, Ian McMillan, Monique Roffey and Jacqueline Rose. 

Some of those elected as part of the RSL Open initiative include Kit de Waal, Lisa McGee, Frances Ryan and Joelle Taylor. Honorary fellows include Adjoa Andoh, Joy Francis and Helen Garnons-Williams. 

Daljit Nagra, chair of the RSL said: “We at the RSL are a community of readers and writers coming together for the advancement of literature, bringing our multiple experiences and perspectives to bear on some of the biggest questions of our times. Fellowship isn’t just an honour bestowed to a writer by their peers; being a fellows gives you the opportunity to show what literature can do to change all our lives.  

“Our fellows inform the work we do, and our summer party is a joyous celebration of the writers who enrich our nations with the cultural wealth of their generous literature. I am delighted to be chair of an organisation that shows the extraordinary and diverse excellence of writing in the UK, and makes it possible for us to create a society we want to live in.” 

Sissay said of his appointment: “With Samuel Taylor Coleridge as an early associate and Bernardine Evaristo as president I feel a great honour in becoming a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Once I was a gutter cleaner. Now I am fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. There is poetry in how rain falls through gutters on its way from the sky to the sea.” 

Cave said it was “an absolute honour” to be elected and that he was “thrilled to be part of this great community of writers”.