UK Mainstream Award Includes SF Book…
November 13th, 2008 by Editors
… an no one has died! Though presumably there is a vast amount of gnashing of teeth in some parts of the UK literary establishment.
Still, this is not the Booker we are talking about. This is the Warwick Prize, a new venture which bills itself as, “an international cross-disciplinary award which will be given biennially for an excellent and substantial piece of writing in the English language, in any genre or form.” As Lindesay Irvine points out in The Guardian, the “any form” part seems to have fallen by the wayside, but this is the first year of the award so non-book writers should not despair yet. In the meantime, there is a £50,000 ($75,000 and falling) prize up for grabs, and one of the books on the short list is Brasyl by Ian McDonald.
Who is responsible for foisting this outrage upon the poor, unsuspecting UK literary establishment? Well, the chairman of the judging panel is a well-known political agitator by the name of China Miéville.
Hey come on, F/SF/slipstreamish novels on ‘literary’ shortlists is really not so unusual these days!
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell was on the Booker shortlist in 2005. And I’m sure there were others, but they escape my mind at the moment.
Rosanne
That’s true, Rosanne, but Mitchell is regarded as a mainstream writer (whatever that means) and his book was published as such. Nnedi is a YA fantasy writer and her book was published in that genre. That’s the difference.
Thanks for this. Thought you all might enjoy the coverage over at IROSF, linked back to you.
http://irosf.com/news-item.qsml?id=150
We are always delighted to receive links, Marti. (Especially as it seems that one or two news services recycle our stories without crediting us.)