I'm working on a post on Gaynor Arnold's Girl in a Blue Dress at the moment, and also on reading Ann Weisgarder's accomplished debut The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. Given that, I've been thinking about the Orange Prize a lot, and about the controversy it causes year after year, and about whether or not it is justified to have a prize for women only. Then I see the shortlist for the Impac Dublic prize - the world's richest English language prize - which was released today and I think: yes, hell yes, women still need a prize of their own.
The shortlist is eight books long; all eight books are by male authors. The Guardian article I read about it notes that there are some notable omissions but, no surprises, the omissions are more of the same. Coetzee, Roth, Hosseini, McEwan and Ondaatje have all 'missed out' or been 'snubbed'. Seasoned authors have been pushed aside by debuts. But nowhere does it mention or even note the gender disparity. What about the great women writers on the longlist who missed out? What about Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, AL Kennedy or Anne Enright? What about Annie Dillard or Sarah Hall? Joyce Carol Oates or Rose Tremain? Haven't they been snubbed? Do you know how many women have won the Impac prize since 1996? Three.
This comes hot on the heels of last year's Booker shortlist, which was also thoroughly dominated by men. It looks to me as though the Orange Prize has never been more necessary. Can you imagine any other prize having a shortlist composed entirely of women writers? I can't. Every year I'm reading extroadinary work by women, and every year it slips by unnoticed. It isn't because women aren't writing great fiction; it's because fiction by men is being privileged, either because of its style, or its subject, I don't know. Amongst our so-called literary giants women are still strange beasts.
The Orange Prize isn't the best solution to this problem, I admit, because it further ghetto-ises fiction by women, but at least it puts women's fiction on the table. At least it puts it in shops and libraries and in people's minds.
~~Victoria~~