The Women’s Prize for Fiction, and why there has to be one

1. 
   Theophrastus permalink*

   April 14, 2013 4:07 pm

   Looking at the record since 2006, more women than men have won the Booker Prize.
2. 
   J. K. Gayle permalink*

   April 14, 2013 7:35 pm

   Theophrastus,
   Nobody is implying that Deborah Copaken Kogan can’t count. She is very clear to call out the claims of that “prize-winning male novelist in 2008,” who says so brashly, “The Orange Prize is a sexist con-trick” and “The past is gone. Get over it.” (This is her second paragraph, of course. And she even is so kind to give us all links to this other novelist’s essay. There, as we all can see, he gives the exact math to the world:

   the Booker still doesn’t give women their just mathematical due – a 3:10 ratio remains. But given that women have won five out of the last six Whitbread/Costas,

   Copaken Kogan isn’t disputing the numbers. Her essay and her argument are more compelling than that. And her conclusion comes back around to this other novelist’s bald assertion. She begins her closing paragraphs thusly:

   The Women’s Prize for Fiction—and three cheers for the transparency of its new name—is not a “sexist con-trick” by any definition of sexism that I know. To the contrary, it redresses . . .
3. 
   Theophrastus permalink*

   April 14, 2013 10:24 pm

   I felt embarrassed for the author reading her essay, and the stories of her personal violation.

   Now, if they went back and gave previously unheralded women authors awards for their writings in the late twentieth century, then that would be something different.

   I personally find John Berger’s protest over the Booker prize much more compelling.

   Alan Bissett’s criticism is also more pointed.

Trackbacks

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