We posted a video on our Instagram page this week and we genuinely cannot stop watching it. It is Marcia Hutchinson, arms raised, walking across the stage at the 2026 British Book Awards to receive the Discover Prize for The Mercy Step, and every second of it is worth your time.
The Discover Prize celebrates books from underrepresented writers and independent publishers, and it is hard to imagine a more deserving winner. The Mercy Step is set in Bradford in December 1962, following Mercy, the youngest child of a Windrush-generation Jamaican family, navigating a household shaped by her father’s quick temper and her mother’s devotion to the Church. Left to herself, Mercy finds solace in books, her imagination, and the quiet determination to build a different future. It is the kind of novel that stays with you, and clearly, it stayed with the judges too.
When we posted the video, Hutchinson responded in the comments with characteristic warmth and wit: “Oh I was so bloody happy. Thank you Matt and the other judges, The Bookseller for putting in such a stush event, and everyone who has read (or who is thinking about reading) The Mercy Step.” But it was her speech on the night that truly stopped the room. Hutchinson revealed that she received 54 rejections before Cassava Republic, a Black-owned publishing house, said yes. “The 55th was Cassava Republic,” she told the audience. “And thank God they exist: Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, the owner, Laila Muhammad, a brilliant editor, the whole team.” She closed her speech by quoting Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”: “I’m 63 now, but the way things is going, will I live to see 64. I don’t know.” The room, we imagine, was absolutely hers.
Fifty-four rejections. One yes. A Windrush story finally where it belongs, on a British stage, in a winner’s hands, being watched by thousands. Congratulations to Marcia Hutchinson and the entire Cassava Republic team. Head to our Instagram page to watch the moment for yourself.
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