Why do book prizes ignore the best reads?

It's the fault of male academics on the judging panels, says author Louise Doughty, one of tonight's Booker judges. They pick the literary and the obscure to impress their colleagues

By Arifa Akbar, arts correspodent

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

Share
Close
- Digg
- del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Reddit
- Google
- Stumble Upon
- Fark
- Newsvine
Print
Email

Novelist, writer and Booker judge Louise Doughty

Novelist, writer and Man Booker judge Louise Doughty

enlarge

One of the judges of this year's Man Booker Prize has launched an outspoken attack on male academics who sit on literary judging panels, ahead of the award ceremony tonight.

Louise Doughty, who has written five novels, said such men should not be invited on to judging panels as they "always have their eye on their reputations" and are too concerned with picking a "highbrow" author rather than a readable one. She added that they tended to made judgements based on "how well the winning book reflected on them", often choosing the most obscure and self-consciously highbrow novelist, rather than considering the best entry.

"I don't think it's a good idea to have academics as judges on these prizes," she said. "Academics always have their eye on their reputations and always have a vested interest to pick someone as literary and obscure as possible. I think academics are always looking over their shoulder. Academics automatically feel it [the choice of Booker winner] will reflect on their career," she said.

While widely considered to be the pinnacle of literary accomplishment, popularly acclaimed writers such as Sebastian Faulks, Mark Haddon and Robert Harris have never won the Booker. Critics like Doughty believe it is those authors' accessibility which counts against them.

But John Sutherland, Emeritus professor of English literature at University College London, who was chair of the prize in 2005, said Doughty's allegations "sound bonkers (sorry to use academic terminology) to me". Professor Sutherland cast the winning vote for the Booker to be awarded to John Banville for The Sea. He had been seen as the most non-commercial of the contenders.

He said: "Academics are not over-represented on the Man Booker, but they are on the James Tait Black Memorial which often, in my view, makes better decisions. it's analogous to the issue as to whether sports journalists (who've never kicked a ball in anger) or ex-football stars make the best soccer commentators. A mixture of both seems to work well."

He suggested that Doughty's comments were unfair: "if she said it, 'male academics' is as offensive as it would be to say too many 'female novelists' are chosen as panellists. I don't, of course, believe that they are, or that female novelists can be lumped together any more than male academics can."

Doughty said male academics tended to make more self-interested decisions than their female counterparts and recalled a panel debate at the Cheltenham Literary Festival last year in which a male academic admitted he made a decision against awarding Graham Greene a prize, years ago, because his book had been "too readable". "He was judging the James Tait Black Memorial prize many years ago and he was on a panel that didn't give Greene the prize because he was too readable," she said.

"I think there are academics who think readability itself disqualifies the book from literary greatness, which is complete and utter nonsense, when you consider the likes of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I think women academics are a hell of a lot less poncey than male ones. They have had a battle to get there and they are more open and less anxious about their reputations."

She commended the choice of judges this year, which includes the former MP Michael Portillo as chair; Alex Clark, the editor of Granta; James Heneage, the founder of Ottaker's bookshop, and Hardeep Singh Kohli, the TV and radio broadcaster. "You have got someone like Michael Portillo, a former politician," she said. He is not going to feel that the final choice of Booker winner will reflect on his future career."

Ion Trewin, the Man Booker prize administrator, said the lack of academics on this year's panel had not been intentional and that it did not suggest a change of direction in the choice of judges.

The novelist D J Taylor agreed with Doughty in the context of his own experience in 2003. He was judging the prize alongside the academics John Carey and A C Grayling. "When you get an academic on a judging panel for fiction, it does not matter if they are an English literature don or a philosopher, they tend not to be very au fait with the current state of writing," he said.

The winner from a shortlist of six novelists – The Independent columnist Philip Hensher, for The Northern Clemency; Sebastian Barry, for The Secret Scripture; Aravind Adiga, for The White Tiger; Amitav Ghosh, for Sea of Poppies; Linda Grant, for The Clothes on Their Backs, and Steve Toltz, for A Fraction of the Whole – will be announced at the Southbank Centre in London.