Bloomsday Schoomsday: Dublin Is the Right Place to Think about Literary Prizes and Money, Especially So at the Start of What the Tourist Board Calls Bloomsweek

Hope, Christopher, New Statesman (1996)

Prizes, it is endlessly repeated, are "good for books". That's the mantra relayed from literary headquarters with the sort of endearing optimism behind the belief that carrots improve night vision. The winning novel gets a lift. Publishers may pin flags on it, pile it high, sell it hard. Writers may hate the catwalk on which they find themselves competing, but they like the payoff. Is there anything worse than being entered in the Literary Lovely Leg stakes? Not being entered.

A literary prize is, also, a sum of money given by sponsors no-one has heard of to writers few have read, in the hopes of improving the reputations of both. Thus we are faced with the paradox that these competitions are an assault on writers in which writers often collaborate. Prizes, then, are a form of self-abuse.

In the light of the …

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Publication information: Article title: Bloomsday Schoomsday: Dublin Is the Right Place to Think about Literary Prizes and Money, Especially So at the Start of What the Tourist Board Calls Bloomsweek. Contributors: Hope, Christopher - Author. Magazine title: New Statesman (1996). Volume: 125. Issue: 4289 Publication date: June 21, 1996. Page number: 12. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 1996 Gale Group.

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