NLRG co-founder Dawn Barnes is is disappointed with the lack of books by women writers on the aptly-named Man Booker 2015 shortlist.
Dawn | 10 October 2015
*humble pie time (22.21, 12 Oct 2015). It was pointed out to me that Hanya Yanagihara is a woman. My bad. That book may even be the winner.
This is the third year that I have taken part in the ‘Booker Challenge’ with my local bookshop, Big Green Books in Wood Green, north London.
It’s fun and involves reading the entire shortlist in a few short weeks, particularly challenging this year with two 700+ pagers among the six and falling in conference season (those that know me will be aware of my Lib Demmery). Then we meet in the shop, talk about the books (over wine) and watch the result online or TV, depending on whether or not a book prize is deemed important enough for the TV this year.
Last year, the prize controversially opened up to writers outside of the UK so you would be forgiven for thinking that with such a pool of talent to choose from there might be more than one woman who made the shortlist of six.
Every year, I disagree with some fellow readers who see no point in the Bailey’s Prize for Fiction (was Orange Prize for Fiction), which is only open to women. ‘In this day and age,’ they argue, ‘there is no need for a prize just for women’. They go on to point out that many of the books selected in our reading groups are written by women – although most recently we’ve had Don DeLillo and Guy de Maupassant who are definitely not female.
Well, this year’s aptly-named Man Booker Prize shows why remedial action in literature, just as in so many other areas including politics and business, is needed. Promoting literary novels written by women is vital. There are great women writers, so where are they on the list? The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize seems to have managed to find female authors to shortlist, in fact women writers take the majority of the slots. If we don’t promote women’s fiction we risk forgetting their existence, or writing women off as only capable of writing for women.
The longlist had it, there were 13 listed and just shy of half were female authors but only one woman made the shortlist, meaning there is a 1 in 6 chance of a woman taking the prize and – personal view alert – I deeply doubt that it will be Anne Tyler (although I am neither offering to eat my hat nor run naked down Whitehall if proven wrong, like some of my fellow Lib Dems).
I’d love to tell you that the shortlist has blown me away but, with two books left to go, I have been mainly disappointed and my favourite two are written by men.
Surely there are plenty of women worthy of shortlisting from around the world? A quick glance at the judges for the last two years shows a bias toward male judges too. Perhaps a majority of men choosing the winners is a factor?
I’m hoping for improvements in 2016, both on the judging panel – I’m willing to offer myself as a judge – and on the shortlist. Until then, long live the Bailey’s Prize because women need every boost they can get.
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