As a black woman raised in Norway, Tinashe Williamson wanted to write a book that offers both the youth and adults the tools they need to talk about racism. Through ten chapters and ten fictional characters Williamson answers questions about what racism really is, why representation is important and what you can do if someone is discriminated against because of the colour of their skin. Handbook for Young Antiracists was as a huge success when it came out in Norway in 2021, and has since been published in Finland, Denmark and Germany. The American English market is up next, after IG Publishing has secured the rights. The book is illustrated by Thea Jacobsen.

For Tinashe Williamson, it means a lot that her book will be published in the US, where she hopes it will reach school children.

«I rarely say this, but I'm so proud of myself. To be able to contribute to a change in attitudes in a country like the USA, with the temperature they have there, is extremely important to me. It's incredibly cool that I, as a Norwegian author and person of colour, get to have a voice over there,» Williamson says. «I hope they read the book in schools. That would be my dream.»

We consider this publication especially important in the US, in light of the recent banns we're seeing in the American school libraries.

Books about racism and LHBT+ are being removed from shelves and banned, in states like Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina. Between July and December last year, 1477 books were banned, which is an increase of 28% compared to the year before, according to Pen America.

«We've seen that especially books about the American slave history, discrimination against Black Americans and the systematic supression of ethnic and cultural minorites are being removed from American school libraries,» says agent Ida Amalie Svensson, who sold the American English language rights for Handbook for Young Antiracists. «Therefore, we see Handbook for Young Antiracists as a particularly important title. That books provoke is nothing new, and books that educate and spread knowledge are more important than ever.»

«This tells me that we've made somthing important,» says Tinashe Williamson. «We cannot change where we are going, unless we know where we have been. It's important to talk about history in order to change what comes later.»