Pulped fiction: is this the death of the male novelist?

A shift to female perspectives has sidelined male authors, or so says the founder of a new publishing house that trades only in novels written by men. Nick Duerden investigates

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An unexpectedly controversial news story hit the book world last month, concerning the announcement of a new literary publishing house. Ordinarily, such a thing would barely register notice outside of trade outlets or enthusiastic book clubs, but the launch of Conduit Books prompted a flurry of oped pieces across the broadsheets, much discussion online - and an unusual amount of invective.

This is because Conduit has a peculiar raison d’etre in that, initially at least, it will only publish novels written by men. “A modest attempt”, its mission statement reads, “to address the relatively recent scarcity of young or new male writers in the small world of UK fiction.”

So reduced is the existence of the male novelist in today’s literary landscape that they must be encouraged back from out of the shadows in which they’ve presumably been skulking and afforded a notionally safe space. People - and not only women - mocked the idea. Men? Sidelined?! So what is it like being one of the few male novelists publishing books about the male experience in 2025? As one of them tells me, “It’s lonely out there.”

Conduit’s founder, Jude Cook, a novelist and critic, was required to explain more than once why he felt there was a need for his imprint. “The publishing landscape has changed dramatically over the last 15 years, as a reaction to the male-dominated scene of previous generations,” he said recently, citing such familiar titans as Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, and Ian McEwan. While Cook was quick to note that a shift in authorial perspective - and gender balance - had been a long time coming, one consequence, he claimed, is that male authors are now “often overlooked”. Hence Conduit.