A.S. Byatt: Women-Only Orange Prize 'Was Never Needed'
by Zoe Strimpel
Tue, 18 Mar 2008 at 8:52 PM
The intellectual's queen of women's literature, A.S. Byatt, has raised a storm by condemning the women-only Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, following yesterday's release of the long list. Ms. Byatt said that the Orange is sexist and that she has never allowed her publishers to submit her work for consideration. "Such a prize was never needed," she told the Times of London, maintaining that women have proved themselves perfectly capable of winning literary awards without positive discrimination. Last year, for example, Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize, and the Costas (formerly the Whitbreads) have been won by women for two years running — A.L. Kennedy in 2007 for "Day" and Stef Penney in 2006 for "The Tenderness of Wolves." Today's reports have also pointed out that Anita Brookner, winner of the 1984 Booker for "Hotel du Lac" and a known opponent of positive discrimination, has also remained notably absent from Orange Prize long lists.
Organizers at Orange were quick to defend the prize. The project director, Harriet Hastings, told the Times: "Although major prizes have been won by women, the value of the Orange is as a celebration of women's fiction."
Nevertheless, Ms. Byatt's voice was joined by other distinguished literary voices. The writer Tim Lott told BBC Radio 4: "There's no such thing as male writing, any more then there's such a thing as women's writing. There's just good writing and bad writing." He said a male-only prize was not the solution; Ms. Hastings said she'd welcome one.
This year's Orange has caused even more controversy than normal because the pop star Lily Allen, 22, is on the judging panel (which also includes the editor of the Guardian Review, Lisa Allardice; the novelist Philippa Gregory; the writer Bel Mooney, and the journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Lang).
Still, everyone admits the long list boasts goodies, among them Anne Enright's "The Gathering," Linda Grant's "The Clothes on Their Backs" (Grant won the Orange in 2000 with the Tel Aviv-set "When I Lived in Modern Times"), and several exciting authors in the New Writers category, including the Iranian-American Anita Amirrezvani with "The Blood of Flowers."
We can only wait and see what fresh storm is prompted by the release of the short list on April 15 (the New Writers short list comes out April 8) — and then, of course, the winner on June 4.
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