S AT U R A VOL .1 2018 97 makes it possible to locate book studies-relevant topics within that triangle. Literary book awards would be accurately located somewhere in the middle. They are, ideally, all about the literary quality of the texts. However, the winners are selected by humans, who are rarely unbiased, objective judges. Conse- quently, it is not solely literary merit that wins books prizes. Moreover, as every bookshop visitor will have noticed, winning prizes has an almost immediate effect on the appearance of the winning book and sometimes even on the whole oeuvre of the winning author. Stickers or revised cover designs point to the fact that the author is a prize recipient. BRIEF HISTORY OF PRIZE CULTURE It is neither a surprise nor a secret that awards are used heavily as a marketing tool and hence influ- ence reception on several levels. In the twenty-first century, prizes have become ubiquitous, and it is hard not to become cynical about them. Award cat- egories can range from vital contributions to world peace to “Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Cam- era Series”. Within this prize culture, it can seem like a rarity to not have won an award, making the whole awarding idea feel somewhat pointless. James F. English, however, in his seminal monograph about prize culture, warns about such a cynical view and claims that there is a logic to this proliferation of prizes. The modern rise of cultural prizes was kicked off in 1901 with the creation of the Nobel Prize for Literature. As English states: “Announced in hundreds of newspapers worldwide, the Nobel seized the collective imagination with sufficient force on us and created a curious logic of prolifera- tion” (28). Just a few years after the first Nobel cer- BOOK STUDIES AND BOOK AWARDS In 2005, the controversial novel We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver was published. It caused a major dispute, especially in the United States of America, since it addressed the sensitive issue of school shootings. Also shattering the last taboo of motherhood, as the British Telegraph put it, the novel tells the story of a mother who does not connect emotionally with her son and blames him for her failed career and marriage (“Controversial”). Although provocative in itself, it was the book’s win- ning the “Women’s Prize for Fiction” (WPfF)1 which acted as a catalyst for the controversy. Not only did the novel now reach a bigger audience, but the prize obviously rewarded authors writing about shocking topics. Awarded to women writers since 1996, the prize had already been controversial for years at the time of Shriver’s win and once again proved to spark gender debates. Book Studies seems to be a good point of de- parture to discuss the WPfF and its controversies in an academic way. This discipline, once famously de- scribed as “interdisciplinarity run riot” (Darnton 67) nowadays engages in the production, distribution and reception of books, as well as with all possible influences, be they economic, political, sociocultur- al, religious or otherwise. In a more recent approach to illustrate the boundaries, but also opportunities, of Book Studies, Leslie Howsam offered a simple dia- gram, depicting the discipline as a triangle with the cornerstones ‘Bibliography’ (the primary focus on documents and objects), ‘History’ (focus on agen- cy, power and experience) and ‘Literature’ (focus on texts and criticism) (Howsam 17). The diagram 1 To avoid confusion and for the sake of consistency, this arti- cle refers to this prize as W Pf F, no matter which sponsor was named in the title. The Women’s Prize for Fiction and Book Studies SIMON ROSENBERG S AT U R A VOL .1 2018 98 [P]ublishers were threatening to stop nominating books; people invited to serve as judges were routinely declining to do so; Maschler insisted on acting like the chair of the management committee while the actual chair resigned; the Book Trust was abruptly brought in to assume administrative responsibility (though they had never administered a prize); and the sponsor, though committed to an initial seven years of funding, was already making sounds of an early exit. (English 112-114) So why is it that the Booker Prize has become so important despite decades of scandal? According to English, this question is already the answer. He quotes Bourdieu, who stated that “scandal is the instrument par excellence of symbolic action” (qtd. in English 190). One thing that scandals produce is awareness, a necessary condition for sticking out and staying in business in a world filled with priz- es. And the Booker Prize has had its scandals: From winners accusing the prize’s main sponsor of having exploited their workers in a postcolonial framework (John Berger), to shortlisted authors demanding guarantees that they will win as a prerequisite that they show up at the ceremony (Anthony Burgess); From former jurors of the judging panel complain- ing about their fellow judges (A. L. Kennedy et al), to the complaint by media outlets that the shortlist was ‘too readable’ (2011). And only recently it was made public that the winner in 1986 was decided by the flip of a coin.2 2 In September 2018, the Man Booker Prize Foundation re- leased a series of archival inter views that revealed that David Storey’s novel Saville was chosen this way due to judges being unable to find a compromise (Flood). emony in Stockholm, both the Goncourt and Fem- ina literary prizes were founded in France. During the same time period, Joseph Pulitzer declared his intention to launch prizes to honour outstanding work in journalism and literature in the USA. While the Nobel may mark the dawning of a new age in the history of awards, it needs to be stressed that cultural prizes have existed for mil- lennia, dating back to ancient Greece in the late sixth century BC. Apart from that, more modern forms, such as those awarded by universities and royal academies from the seventeenth century on- ward, have always displayed a tendency to prolifer- ate through imitation and differentiation (English 30). What occurred with the explosion of prizes in the twentieth century is quite remarkable and it in- volved considerable innovation on the part of spon- sors and administrators. However, in their most ba- sic ideas, these developments are consistent with long-standing cultural practices. The most basic goals of literary prizes are their social, representative and cultural functions. They support the author and the awarding institu- tion with symbolic, economic and cultural capital. At the same time, they promote and support lan- guage and literature of a specific region and/or cul- tivation of specific genres. Obviously, literary prizes vary in prestige and, even though there are no clear- cut categories, the factors that usually influence prestige are tradition, spatial concept, the econom- ic endowment, the award ceremony, prestige of pre- vious winners and the attention of the public and media. An excellent example is the British (Man) Booker Prize, first of all, because it is one of, if not the most important literary prize in the United Kingdom. More interestingly, though, is that fact that there was no obvious reason why it turned out to become this flagship of prizes. Indeed, its initial years were rocky. Having studied the minutes of committee meetings and private correspondences of people within the sphere of the Booker Prize, En- glish compared his findings with a black-box tran- script of a crashed plane: S AT U R A VOL .1 2018 99 more won the prize for her novel A Spell of Winter and took home ‘Bessie’, a bronze sculpture created specifically for the prize, along with the impressive GBP 30,000 prize money. In fact, this endowment made the WPfF the most lucrative prize for literary awards in Britain, with the Booker Prize lagging be- hind at GBP 20,000 and the Whitbread award at GBP 22,500. Some male authors felt left out and described themselves as victims of sexism, since their gender made them ineligible for such a lucrative award. Sales fig- ures of A Spell of Winter quadru- pled, and even the shortlisted novel Spinsters by Pa- gan Kennedy witnessed a decisive increase in sales, from 800 to 8,000 copies sold (Zangen 281-282). If the WPfF wanted to raise awareness for women’s writing, then it certainly succeeded. However, it soon became apparent that an anonymous private sponsor would not suffice in the long run. After all, supporting a literary award is more than paying the prize money. In the years to come, the WPfF successfully convinced cellular phone service company Orange to sponsor the prize. According to English, Orange invested a quarter mil- lion pounds annually for the first few years to cov- er expenses for various sorts of promotions, book club tie-ins and so on. Briefly changing its name to ‘Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction’ from 2007 to 2008, the prize had Orange as a main sponsor for over seventeen years. After that, the prize was sole- ly sponsored by the liqueur brand Baileys for four years. Since 2017, the prize has been supported by a family of sponsors including Baileys, NatWest, De- loitte, and, beginning in 2019, global TV production company Fremantle. Instead of naming itself after one sponsor, the prize has been known as ‘Women’s Prize for Fiction’ since 2018. Creating a literary book award and restrict- ing it to one gender, rather than one genre, lan- guage or country, was bound to be controversial. Even after the Booker Prize raised their endowment to GBP 50,000, it was still discussed whether the prize was, in essence, sexist, because it disregard- HISTORY OF WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION Another scandalous situation occurred in 1991, when the Booker shortlist consisted of Martin Amis, Roddy Doyle, Rohinton Mistry, Timothy Mo, Ben Okri and William Trevor. It was this shortlist that provid- ed the impetus to create one of the most controver- sially discussed literary book prizes of the last twenty years. By being ex- clusively male, the above-mentioned list underlined the general pattern that female authors were, at least seemingly, neglected within the lit- erary establishment. It is estimated, for example, that during the year of the infamous shortlist, about 60 per cent of published novels had been written by women. Despite this, not one woman made it to the shortlist of the most important British literary book award.3 A group of women (and men) working in the industry — authors, publishers, journalists, etc. — discussed the issue after the infamous all-male Booker shortlist of 1991. The conclusion was that women’s literary achievements were often not ac- knowledged by the major literary prizes. To correct the situation and at the same time create awareness of it, an award was to be established that would be judged solely by and awarded to women. The entry rules were simple: Any novel written by a woman and originally published in the United Kingdom in English was eligible (“Rules”). The prize was planned to be awarded for the first time in 1994. However, public controversy was huge and criticism about such an undertaking was so fierce that the initial sponsor of the Prize, pen manufacturer Mitsubishi, allegedly withdrew its support after a column writ- ten by Simon Jenkins, former editor of the Times, called the prize sexist (Zangen 282). Two years later, with female but otherwise anonymous sponsorship, the prize was awarded for the first time. Helen Dun- 3 This was not an isolated case where female participation was seemingly neglected in prize culture. The Booker Prize 1992 saw merely one woman on the shortlist, and the eventual winner was not one, but two men (Michael Ondaatje and Barr y Unsworth). The first female Whitbread award winner was announced nine years after its inception. The WPfF seeks to “celebrate excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing.” S AT U R A VOL .1 2018 100 are better writers than women. This statement, as misogynistic as it sounds, was the one given by A. S. Byatt.4 Even worse, the juries of the first two years of the prize grudgingly had to admit that the overall quality of the novels entered by publishers were far from excellent. Two judges were quoted saying that many, mainly British, entries could be described as “abysmal,” “obscene” or “self-obsessed” (Zangen 283). Was the prize proving that female writing was, in fact, inferior to men’s writing? At the core of this controversy about the WPfF seems to be one word: accessibility. Most priz- es have a specific claim that sums up their chief goals. Whereas the Booker uses the words “fiction at its finest” to describe its intentions, the WPfF seeks to “celebrate excellence, originality and accessibil- ity in women’s writing.” Obviously, “accessibility” does not refer to the level of difficulty in obtaining a copy of the novel. Rather, it comments on the read- ability of the text. Even though it would be a falla- cy to assume that a hard, uncomfortable read is a sign for high literary quality, referring to readable, accessible literature was seen synonymously with low- to middlebrow reading that does not challenge the reader and sticks to rather successful formulas for bestsellers that can be enjoyed by a wide audi- ence. It almost seemed like a contradictory claim. How can something be excellent and also accessi- ble? The notion seemed to underline the tendency that women writers were unable to compete with serious male writing. Rather infamously, Dorothea Tanning’s novel Chasm: A Weekend was allegedly not considered for the prize in its first year because it was not “accessible” enough. It did, however, gar- ner rave reviews in various media outlets (Turner 2). Literary prizes can influence the literary field of cul- tural production, which is characterized by a highly dynamic structure consisting of processes of inter- action and competition for certain positions within the field. The spectrum of literature could be divid- ed into two extreme ranges: from “almost no audi- ence and no economic profit” or “art for art’s sake,” 4 It may be relevant, though, to state that she did win the Booker Prize before that statement in 1990. ed men. In 2008, for example, Tim Lott wrote in the Telegraph that the WPfF is a ‘sexist con-trick’, stat- ing that underrepresented groups among the win- ners of the two most important British book prizes, like white working class or disabled writers, do not have a prize for themselves. He concluded that the Prize was anachronistic and sexist and “it should be shunned — or, at the very least, mocked merci- lessly” (Lott). Even though it might be only a little surprising to hear such a statement from a male perspective in a rather conservative publication, it was much more surprising to hear female voic- es also uttering fierce criticism about a prize that was established with a feminist agenda. A. S. Byatt, author of the novel Possession, made it clear that she would not wish for her works to be considered for the WPfF and stressed that this was her “deep- est feminist emotion” since this prize would, in her opinion, ghettoise women. In a similar vein, and probably even more controversial, Germaine Greer, one of the leading voices of the second-wave femi- nist movement, stated her dismay. She sarcastical- ly commented that soon somebody would found a prize for writers with red hair (Bedell). If the prize for women was being attacked by strong, female, feminist voices, something must have gone wrong. CRUX OF THE MATTER: ACCESSIBILITY Statistically speaking, roughly 40 per cent of all shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize from its in- ception in 1969 until 1991 were female, and 38 per cent of all Booker winners were female despite the fact that 60 per cent of published authors were women. Let us now assume that, rather idealistical- ly, literary prizes are only awarded to truly superior literature (whatever that is). Following those two statements, logic dictates basically two possible explanations: First, women were being discriminat- ed against. If this is true, then the WPfF works as a corrective measure by applying positive discrimina- tion to create affirmative action and rectify a deeply sexist framework within the publishing industry. A second, much more controversial, explanation: Men S AT U R A VOL .1 2018 101 It is not the intention of this article to an- swer the pressing questions that arise after having summarized the history of the WPfF. Rather, it aims to achieve two goals: First, to stress the relevance of the questions by (re)stating them clearly: Was or is there still a need for a Women’s Prize for Fiction or is it indeed a sexist con-trick? Did or does it achieve what it was supposed to be doing? Does it create awareness without ghettoising women? And more generally: is there such a thing as “women’s writ- ing” and if so, what is it? Is the novel We Need to Talk about Kevin women’s writing? Does it deserve an award with strong commercial clout? It seems dif- ficult enough to ask the urgent questions and keep discussions about relevant topics going. In times of the #metoo movement (albeit not strictly a feminist movement) and feminists lamenting the fact that feminism has become too universal and hence inef- ficient and meaningless (Crispin xi), the discussion about the relevance of such a prize seems more ur- gent than ever. It would be foolish of Book Studies to claim it could offer enough input without reading the novels, as it would be foolish of Literary and Cul- tural Studies to ignore the interdisciplinary frame- work that Book Studies has to offer. It is the second goal of this article to help avoiding this foolishness. WORKS CITED Bourdieu, Pierre. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Polity Press, 1996. Bedell, Geraldine. Textual Politics. The Guardian, 6 March 2005, www.theguardian.com/ books/2005/mar/06/orangeprizeforfic- tion2004.orangeprizeforfiction. Accessed 15 Oct. 2018. Crispin, Jessa. Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto. Melville House Publishing, 2017. Darnton, Robert. “What is the History of Books?” Daedalus, vol. 111, no. 3, 1982, pp. 65-83. to literature created for the mass market and hence primarily for economic profit (Bourdieu 121-127). Lit- erary prizes can be important processes that act as agents within this field. Every institution that offers literary prizes actively influences the literary field of cultural production. However, in order for a nov- el to be eligible for a prize, the authors and/or their works must fit into a specific requirements profile: the laureate has to win the attention of the institu- tion through their work. A consensus must be found between the author’s work and the values and ide- ologies of the institution that awards the prize. This is necessary as not only the author is honoured but also the value orientations of the institution and its ideologies at the same time. Authors, literature and prizes do not work in a closed system. Using Darn- ton’s idea of a communications circuit, it becomes clear that authors, publishers and readers are af- fected by manifold influences. Political and socio- cultural developments not only shape literature but also the way literature is being received by the audience. Literary awards, deliberately or not, react accordingly. Anna Burns winning the Booker Prize in 2018, for example, could be regarded as a prime example. Though Burns predominantly wanted to write about living in Belfast during the times of the Troubles, Milkman can also be read as a comment on fake news, rumours, #metoo and Brexit. Whether or not the author had intended this is irrelevant. In the eyes of the judges, the novel is important be- cause it comments on current, vital issues. If awards are given to good literature, and good literature is supposed to comment on cur- rent issues, then the WPfF is an intriguing subject, through which Book Studies and Literary and Cul- tural Studies should work hand in hand to come to fruitful results. Whereas Book Studies can stress the history and mechanisms of the prize, follow and elaborate on the short- and long-term impacts on the winners, and also locate and distinguish specific frameworks of prize culture in general, Literary and Cultural Studies can shed more light on the literary quality of the awarded novels as well as locate the relevant topics that are discussed in those works. S AT U R A VOL .1 2018 102 English, James F. The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Val- ue. Harvard University Press, 2005. Flood, Alison. ‘Over my dead body’: Booker Prize Archives Reveal Unknown Judging Battles. The Guardian, 6 September 2018, www. theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/06/over- my-dead-body-booker-prize-archives-re- veal-unknown-judging-battles. Accessed 15 Oct. 2018. Howsam, Leslie. Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Cul- ture. University of Toronto Press, 2006. Lott, Tim. The Orange Prize is a Sexist Con-Trick. The Telegraph, 16 March 2008, www. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k /c o m m e n t / p e r s o n - al-view/3556178/The-Orange-Prize-is-a- sexist-con-trick.html. Accessed 10 Oct. 2018. Controversial Novel Wins Orange Prize. The Telegraph, 07 June 2005, www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/1491540/Controversial-novel-wins-Or- ange-Prize.html. Accessed 11 Nov. 2018. Rules. Women’s Prize for Fiction, www.womensprize forfiction.co.uk/about/rules. Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018. Turner, Nick. “Literary Prizes and Contemporary Women’s Writing: An Investigation Through Interviews.” Writers in Conversation vol. 3, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1-8. Zangen, Britta. “Women as Readers, Writers, and Judges: The Controversy about the Orange Prize for Fiction.” Women’s Studies, vol. 32, 2003, pp. 281-299. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Simon Rosenberg has worked for the chair of Book Studies since 2007, first as a research assistant and currently as Akademischer Oberrat. He is primarily responsible for teaching Book Studies for all master programmes. His main research focus concentrates on the transitional phases of the book (printing press, industrial and digital age), and, more recently, book prize culture in the Anglophone world.