Award News:

Ali Smith takes the prestigious "‡", or the award formerly known as Whitbread.


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The depressing truth (at least, as I have observed it) is that the modern, Western reader (as a subclass of the modern Western citizen) has an increasing need to be told what is good and what is crap. They need to be told what products to buy and what movies to see. They need to read endless reviews (even though they know they will only agree with a third of them after they've consumed the product in question) before buying, reading or watching anything.

They read newspapers, not to become informed on the topics of the day, but to glean pithy, intelligent-seeming sound-bites so that they can SOUND well read and intelligent themselves when the topic next arises around the water cooler.

Literary awards are the industry's way of feeding this appetite. They also simplify the job of journalists and 'content producers' throughout the rest of the media circus universe. Why have your own staff waste precious moments actually reading the books when you can acquire your opinions wholesale, direct from the prize panel's lips?

Nobody cares what Joe Schmoe from Entertainment Weekly thinks (although they'll settle for his opinion rather than forming one of their own) when they can lift the EXPERT opinion of Some Industry Sage who sat on the panel.

But whether you love 'em or mock 'em, the literary prize does serve as a marketing vehicle, mostly for the mainstream, safe-to-admit-you-like kind of writing. In my experience, the most engaging and thought provoking writing is usually too far from tradition to garner very many awards.

Of course, it could just be the post-holiday turkeybloat talking.

The literary prize economy
How will we know what's good without the ever-increasing number of prizes to tell us?

The prize system, with its own cadre of career administrators and judges, is one of the ways in which value gets “added on” to a work. Of course, we like to think that the recognition of artistic excellence is intuitive. We don’t like to think of cultural value as something that requires middlemen—people who are not artists themselves—in order to emerge. We prefer to believe that truly good literature or music or film announces itself. Which is another reason that we need prizes: so that we can insist that we don’t really need them.

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Orange Prize jury chair picked

You remember what Susan Swan said about the Giller's... you pick your jury and you pick the winner. This Orange thing is shaping up to be a real humdinger. You can cut the tension with a butterknife. I feel all tingly in my --- oh, I can't keep this up until next year. I'm bored shitless already. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?


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Instead of a fiction category, a non-fiction category, a children's category, etc., they'll have a "meat-lovers", and "veggie-lovers"....

Whitbread Award to become the Pizza Hut Prize?

Egad.

From its somewhat cloudy press statement, it seems that Whitbread may be thinking of moving sponsorship of the country's second most prestigious literary prize on to one of its subordinate brands. Which of the Whitbread family would work best?

"Beefeater Literary Awards" would retain the British flavour, although since CJD the national dish will always have a slightly sinister aftertaste to it. And a surprising number of writers are vegetarian - or of Indian extraction.

"Pizza Hut (UK) Literary Prizes" sounds downright tatty. And, despite the parenthesis, distinctly un-English. Can you imagine Harold Pinter accepting it?

"TGI Friday's" doesn't really evoke images of curling up with Claire Tomalin, or going head to head with Salman about whether Peter Kemp was right to describe his latest (favourite for this year's, last ever, fiction prize) as a rest home for geriatric magic realism cliches (bastard).

"Yum! Literary Awards" has a certain zing to it. But, like the others, it sadly lacks the gravitas the book world likes.

In Canada it could become the Tim Horton's Prize for Sugar Coated Literature. Now that's a delicious prospect!


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how come you didn't describe Rabinovich as a "cheap bastard"?

Sad and ridiculous excuse

The Whitbread Prize is no longer. I love how the website frames the disaster. Anybody got a few mil to endow? Or just write the cheap bastards who are backing out.


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So many awards

So little time. (From Maud)


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Хорошее утро! Вы будете теперь богачами!

Now THIS is a literary prize. Check out that jury! (From Brenda)


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National Book Awards announced

Once again I see there are no Canadians on this list. How typical. Awards for American writing going to Americans. Sheesh.


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Now on to the Whitbread

Shortlist announced.


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What do awards say about your achievement?

Not all that much, says Joseph Epstein in the WSJ.


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Edited by author 11-10-2005 11:14 AM
Dear France,

Look what the British are doing. Take a page, s'il vous plait.

An Eid-ul-Fitr celebration was held at Chesham's Elgiva Theatre last Friday, welcoming 150 people in a cross-cultural evening of entertainment and awards.
Children from Chesham Mosque's Community Deen Group read Arabic poems, prayers and sang a song, and the Khayaal Theatre Company told tales of wisdom from the Muslim world.

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Edited by author 11-08-2005 01:11 PM
The Giller party

Not invited but want to know what the shortlist is wearing? Finished reading the shortlist and ready to read the books that most inspired these fab novels? Curious about what the winner will do with the money? Here you go.

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Awards and sales

Musical words, are they not? And they're two great tastes that taste so great together you can't really have one without the other, can you? Not in the lit fiction market.


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