Letter: A woman's place

Sir: Why a woman? asks Alain de Botton (Another View, 26 January) of the recipient of the pounds 30,000 Orange Prize for Fiction. Why not?

Women form a considerable percentage of serious novelists. They have won the Booker prize 10 times, while men have won 19 times; the Whitbread twice and men 9 times; the Nobel 9 times and men 78 times.Whether that is a fair proportion in each case, it would be almost impossible to say; but why should they not have a chance, too, of competing with their own sex?

Yours faithfully,

Martyn Goff

Book Trust

London, SW18