Showing posts with label prizes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prizes. Show all posts

06 December 2018

Prizes



In the world of literature, winning a prize can propel that masterpiece into a flurry of activity and recognition. Books that may have been overlooked entirely, are now jumping hot off the shelves. I was looking at the short listed books on the Man Booker Prize list over the years since 1969 when it was first instituted. I was astounded by how few of the names of winners I recognized: Hilary Mantel, who won twice, John Banville, Yann Martel, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Salmon Rushdie who went on to win the Booker of Bookers for the best of the best awarded in an anniversary year.

I was astounded when I first learned that publishers pay to get their books on the lists of prize contenders. I had thought the process was pure. But nothing is ever that pure, is it? Someone has to run the prize process and so there are costs involved. But to have to pay to be considered is somehow distasteful. Like bribery.