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Orange: No literary prize stitch up

20.03.07

The organisers of this year's Orange Prize for Fiction have denied that the award deliberately excludes books that have won one of the other main literary awards, after the judges of the top literary prize for women novelists took the rare step of including the winners of the recent Man Booker and Costa prizes in their field of contenders for this year's honour. The Guardian, sensing a conspiracy, writes: "None of the richer awards since the first of them, the Booker, was founded in 1968 has gone to a book which has previously won a sizeable rival award. Few if any have even gone to titles shortlisted or longlisted for a rival."

The judges' chair, broadcaster Muriel Gray, said: "It is a preposterous idea that we would censor a book because it has won another prize." The Orange's founder and honorary director, Kate Mosse, said the judges had been told that they must forget whether any of the titles had been successful in any other field. "What a book has done outside the judges' room is utterly irrelevant. This applies equally strongly at the shortlist stage and in choosing the winner. Nothing matters except the quality between the pages. Whether the sponsors have views on which books should win or not is never discussed. Orange totally supports the independence of the judging process." Martyn Goff, administrator of the Booker prize from its beginning until early this century, added: "In all those years, I can never remember a discussion among the judges of a book which had won another prize."

According to the Guardian, booksellers and publishers tend to prefer the huge sales boosts from awards to be shared between several titles. However, the reading public would gain if there was more of a consensus among the prizes on the best books of the year.

Guardian

Book Prizes The Orange Prize The Booker Prize The Costa Book Awards

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