The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson, published by Cassava Republic Press, has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world.
This is auspicious for Nigerian founded publishing house, Cassava Republic Press which is making the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist for the first time in the prize’s history and on its 20th, anniversary marking a significant moment not only for the author, but for independent African publishing on the global stage.
In announcing that The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction, Cassava Republic Press said this a moment that belongs to more than one book, and more than one publisher.
This is the first time an African and Black women-owned small press have ever reached this shortlist in the prize’s thirty-year history. The publishing house also noted that the recognition affirms what Cassava Republic has always believed: that Black stories, complex, tender, and unflinching belong at the centre of global literary culture, not at its margins.
Reacting to the shortlisting, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Founder and Publishing Director, Cassava Republic Press said: “We are honoured, and we are proud. This is what independent, Black-owned publishing is for – not as a corrective to the mainstream, but as a home. A place where a writer can debut at sixty. Where a story rooted in Black British life can be treated with the full literary ambition it deserves. We started in Abuja twenty years ago with passion and an unshakeable belief that African storytelling belonged to the world. Today, the world agrees.”
Founded in Abuja, Nigeria in 2006, Cassava Republic Press has spent nearly two decades publishing bold, original writing from Africa and the diaspora. Marcia Hutchinson published her debut novel at sixty. The Mercy Step was rejected by over 50 publishers before it was accepted and published by Cassava Republic.
Set in 1960s Bradford, the novel follows Mercy, the youngest child of a Windrush-generation Jamaican family, navigating a household shaped by her father’s violence, her mother’s fierce faith, and the unbreakable love between siblings. Sharply observed, deeply affecting, and told through a child’s unflinching voice, it is a novel about silence, resilience, and the quiet acts of defiance that shape a life.
Critics and authors have described the novel in glowing terms with the observer hailing it as “dark and humorous storytelling that passionately captures the unique realities of the northern Black experience, told with imaginative power from a child’s vantage point.”
Paterson Joseph, actor and author, described it as “a moving and perfectly observed slice of Black British life with the hallmarks of a modern classic,” while for Irenosen Okojie, author, the novel is a “a brilliant debut with a child protagonist impossible to look away from.”
Hutchinson is a British-Jamaican lawyer, community activist, and MBE recipient. This is her debut novel.
The winner of the £30,000 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced on 11 June 2026 in London. The paperback edition of The Mercy Step is available from 30 April 2026.
