[5][15] Its work is part-funded by Arts Council England[16] and was included in their 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2023 National Portfolios (prior to this, the company was a Regularly Funded Organisation from 2006).
[15] Peepal Tree Press has published, in various forms, such writers as Roger Robinson, Bernardine Evaristo, Anthony Kellman, Kwame Dawes, Christian Campbell, Jacob Ross, Kei Miller,[24] Christine Craig, Opal Palmer Adisa, Angela Barry, Ishion Hutchinson, Dorothea Smartt,[25] Alecia McKenzie, Una Marson, Shivanee Ramlochan, Jack Mapanje, Patience Agbabi, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Daljit Nagra, Grace Nichols, Lemn Sissay, John Agard, Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo, Raymond Antrobus, Keith Jarrett, Rishi Dastidar, Gemma Weekes, Pete Kalu, Maggie Harris, Courttia Newland, Jackie Kay, Jan Lowe Shinebourne, and Kamau Brathwaite.
[26][27][28] After World War II, UK publishers such as Heinemann, Longman and Faber developed various English-language African, Caribbean and Asian writers series.
[34] During this period, Peepal Tree Press' founder Jeremy Poynting befriended Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o at the University of Leeds, who inspired his interest in Caribbean literature.
At that point a lecturer in further education and a trade unionist, this friendship led Poynting to pursue a PhD in Caribbean literature at the University of Leeds.
[32] Heinemann, for instance, was acquired by British Tyre & Rubber, which sold its Social Sciences list to Gower Press in Aldershot.
[33] That same year, while visiting Guyana, Poynting saw local writer Rooplall Monar acting out some of his stories in the ruins of the Lusignan sugar estate.
[14] Forbes Burnham's authoritarian regime had led to a paper shortage in the country, so publishing opportunities in Guyana were slim.
[13][14][6] With the help of his son, Poynting moved production to his home garage, using a second-hand Rotaprint offset printer held together with an elastic band and a folding machine paid for with an Arts Council grant (in their 1991/2 funding cycle).
[38][6] After the Arts Council offered him a subsequent development grant in their 1992/3 funding cycle,[19] Poynting went part-time in his job at Thomas Danby, producing books with the remainder of his week.
[39] The press published two notable debut poetry collections that year: Bernardine Evaristo's Island of Abraham[40][41] and Kwame Dawes' Progeny of Air.
[4] In 1995, a small group of business-minded friends and supporters, including Caribbean poets Ian McDonald and Ralph Thompson, helped turn the press into a limited company.
[6] In 2009 the press launched the Caribbean Modern Classics Series, which restores to print important books from the 1950s onwards, such as Edgar Mittelholzer's My Bones and My Flute,[27] George Lamming's Water with Berries,[28] Una Marson's Selected Poems[44] and Seepersad Naipaul's Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales.
Poet Adam Lowe also joined the press, on an Arts Council placement, handling social media and publicity.
These include partnering with the Geraldine Connor Foundation on Windrush learning resources;[25] Comma Press, And Other Stories and Dead Ink on the Northern Fiction Alliance;[9][48] the Leeds Soroptimists and Ilkley Literature Festival for the SI Leeds Literary Prize; and Akashic Books, the Bocas LitFest, the Commonwealth Foundation and the British Council on CaribLit.
[51] In 2020, Peepal Tree published academic Corinne Fowler's Green Unpleasant Land, which was selected by Bernardine Evaristo as an Observer Best Books 2021.
[52] The book attracted controversy from the Conservative Party's Common Sense Group and Restore Trust for exploring connections between the British countryside and the empire.
It would not be remiss to say that most—not all, Shani Mootoo and other Canadian-Caribbean authors have other avenues open to them—Indo-Caribbean fiction and poetry that gains an international audience outside of the Caribbean does so through the efforts of this press.
[9][21] The Free Verse Report (London: Spread the Word, 2005) noted that Peepal Tree was one of only a few presses who consistently published Black and Asian poets in Britain.
[48][70][23] Bethan Evans notes that Peepal Tree Press often takes more risks when it comes to form and subject matter than do bigger publishers.
Peepal Tree has published the debuts of authors such as Kwame Dawes, Kevin Jared Hosain and Bernardine Evaristo.
[9] Reflecting on the editing she received at indie presses, author Desiree Reynolds said that they "still do the heavy lifting big publishers fail to".
[73]Jamaican poet Ishion Hutchinson said of the press:I have been fortunate to have my first effort handled by an entity committed to only quality writing from the Caribbean.
[76] In 2018, the Bookseller noted that independent presses, including Peepal Tree, "dominated" on that year's Jhalak Prize list.
To fulfil this mission, editorial control and the daily operation of Peekash was transferred to the originators of the CaribLit project, Bocas LitFest, in 2017.
[63] On 1 February 2024, Peepal Tree announced that it was partnering with HopeRoad Publishing, widening the press' focus from the Caribbean and Britain to cover Asia and Africa as well.
[87] With this new, broader remit, Peepal Tree's slogan changed from "Home of the Best in Caribbean and Black British Writing" to "Decolonising bookshelves since 1985".
[90][91] Founded in 2004,[11] it is run by co-directors Kadija George[92] and Dorothea Smartt,[10] and has supported such writers such as Khadijah Ibrahiim, Desiree Reynolds,[73] Seni Seneviratne, and Rommi Smith.
[103] It also publishes chapbooks and pamphlets of Black British writers,[104] including Sai Murray, Degna Stone,[105][106] and Maya Chowdhry.
The first episode featured Barbara Jenkins reading from her debut novel De Rightest Place, Shivanee Ramlochan reviewing Caribbean books, and music by Chris Campbell.