Results tagged “carol shields” from Slipped disc

I strolled down to the South Bank last night to witness a literary award which I had no chance of winning. The Orange Prize for Fiction is restricted to works by women.

Originated in 1996 by Kate Mosse, who has gone on to write epic best-sellers, the £30,000 prize has given a huge career boost to many gifted writers, among them Carol Shields (1998), Linda Grant (2000), Kate Grenville (2001), Ann Patchett (2002), Lionel Shriver (2005) and Chimamanda Ngozi Achede (2007).

It has also shortlisted but failed to reward such works of lasting value as Zadie Smith's White Teeth, Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and Marina Lewicka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. No book prize is infallible, and the Orange is about average in its hit and miss rate.

Last night's winner, from a relatively pallid shortlist, was Marilynne Robinson for her third novel, Home, a sequel to Gilead, which earned her a Pulitzer Prize four years ago but was overlooked at the time by the Orange judges.

The question, then and now, is whether we need a separate prize for women. It is a publishing truism that most novels are bought and read by women. Most novelists will confirm that their heaviest response comes from women readers. My first novel, The Song of Names, contained no strong female characters yet has been enjoyed mostly by women, so far as I can judge from the email-bag. My forthcoming second novel, The Game of Opposites, has two strong women and may (I suspect) appeal more to men.

People who read novels do not discriminate on grounds of gender, so why should people who judge and reward them? I did not feel in any way excluded at the Orange bash and, indeed, saw several other male writers like myself revelling in the occasion. Novelists are novelists. We don't judge by gender and nor, on the whole, do our publishers. I would suggest to Kate Mosse that after 12 years the time has come for a rethink.

I am not suggesting she should scrap a prize which has made a place for itself in the literary calendar. But I wonder whether the definition should not be relaxed - in the first place, and quite urgently, to include novels from other languages, such as Julia Franck's extraordinary Mittagsfrau, and ultimately to make the award less gender exclusive.

Your thoughts, please. 

Dear Michael Ignatieff

As a former colleague of yours on the BBC's Late Show in the 1990s, I want to draw your attention to a Canadian phenomenon which, though you are not yet prime minister, can be significantly remedied by your intervention. There may even be some votes in it.

You can guess what I'm referring to. It's the top-down dumbing down of arts and culture.

Canada is a country that punches creatively above its weight. Its diversity of authors -from Margaret Attwood and Carol Shields to Josef Skvorecky, Mordecai Richler and Ying Chen - are read the world over. Its musicians are widely heard and its theatrical style is distinctive. Like Britain, Canada has nurtured a national cultural renaissance by means of an enlightened state broadcaster and modest amounts of public subsidy.

Those gentle boosters are now in jeopardy. CBC Radio has converted its classical station to pick 'n' mix, and its classical presentation to low populism, demolishing cultural confidence.

To cite one current example. CBC is asking listeners to choose 49 Canadian songs to send to President Obama. Michael, could you ever imagine such cultural cringe at the BBC?

Another instance: the Canada Council for the Arts is scrapping subsidy for controlled-circulation literary and music magazines. I can't figure out the bureaucratic reasoning from afar and I should declare a tiny interest: my weekly column appears without fee on a website linked to one Canadian publication. These magazines nurture the grass roots of art. Scythe them down, and not much will grow tomorrow.

What can you do as leader of the opposition? Easy. The squeaky bums in broadcasting and arts councils (we have the same types over here) respond very swiftly to comments from an opposition leader shortly before an election. The bums don't want to lose their seats.

One speech, Michael, that's all it would take. One speech urging Canada to smarten up and stop dumbing down would put more heart into the arts and more arts in the world than a pack of Medicis. One word from you, and the bureaucrats will go upmarket.

Think about it. With a positive signal to Canada's creative furnace, your Liberals would stand for innovation and enlightenment, as distinct from the numbskull Conservatives. To borrow Isaiah Berlin's famous metaphor, you would be the fox and they the hedgehog - tomorrow's roadkill.

Forgive this intrusion from abroad. I have no right to interfere in Canadian affairs, except to wish the best for its arts. My justification is John Donne's: no man is an island. Canada's arts are important. If they shrink, the world suffers. They help to define what you and I would call civilisation. Get behind them, Michael, before the election.

With best wishes

Norman Lebrecht

www.normanlebrecht.com