This week, The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson was longlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Discover Prize at the British Book Awards.
We have been sitting with that sentence all week.
Here is the part of this story we want to share with you.
The Mercy Step is Marcia Hutchinson’s debut novel. She is in her sixties. Before it found a home with us, it was passed over more than 50 times. We say that not to dwell on the difficulty of that journey, but because it speaks directly to why Cassava Republic exists.
And yet. Here we are.
When we first read this manuscript, something shifted in the room. Drawing on Hutchinson’s own experiences growing up in a Jamaican immigrant family in 1960s Bradford, it follows young Mercy through family, faith, and fear with a voice so precise, so full of wit and quiet defiance, that we couldn’t imagine it not existing in the world.
So, we published it. That is what independent publishers do. We back the books we believe in, even when the path has been long and difficult. Marcia’s voice had been long prepared for this moment. We simply had the privilege of opening the door.
This is why small, independent, Black-owned publishing matters. Not as a corrective. But as a home. A place where a writer in her sixties can debut. Where a story rooted in Black British life can be treated with the full literary ambition it deserves. Where writers who bring new perspectives to British storytelling are not an afterthought but the entire point.
If you haven’t yet read The Mercy Step, this is your moment. A story that stayed with us from the very first page and will stay with you too.
To everyone who has already read it, championed it, pressed it into someone else’s hands: thank you. You are the reason stories like this one find their audience.
This is why supporting independent publishers to exist and produce more books like this is crucial. Every book you buy from a small press, every review you leave, every time you recommend an indie title, it all matters more than you know.
The Mercy Step is available now on our website and wherever books are sold.
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