Writers launch Folio Prize for fiction

US author Michael Chabon. Wikimedia Commons

Writers from Britain, the United States, Australia and India will choose the first winner of the £40,000 (Dh221,943) Folio Prize for fiction, which hopes to rival the Booker as the English-speaking world's most prestigious literary award.

On Tuesday, organisers of the Folio Prize announced a high-profile judging panel made up of British poet Lavinia Greenlaw, US novelist Michael Chabon, British writer Sarah Hall, Australian short story writer Nam Le and Indian novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra.

The five were chosen by lot from the Folio Academy, a 100-strong international group of writers and critics that includes novelists Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, Peter Carey, Mohsin Hamid, Junot Diaz and Salman Rushdie.

Chabon – the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Telegraph Avenue – said he's slightly daunted by the prospect of reading 80 contending novels in the space of a few months. But judging his fellow novelists holds no terrors.

“I think being non-judgmental is highly over-rated,” he said. “That’s all writers do all day long, sit in judgment. I’m highly trained at sitting in judgment on other people.”

The Folio Prize is staking its name on a mix of inclusivity and exclusivity.

The award was set up by a group of writers, publishers and agents amid debate over whether the 44-year-old Booker was guilty of dumbing down. Recent Booker winners have included relatively best-selling authors such as Hilary Mantel and Julian Barnes, leading to criticism that newer or edgier voices are being overlooked.

The only criterion for winning the Folio Prize, organisers say, is “excellence.”

Unlike the Booker Prize, which is open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers, the Folio admits Americans. It can be won by any English-language writer whose work has been published in Britain.

Under the complex prize rules, the judging panel must include three members from Britain and two from elsewhere, and can contain no more than three men or three women.

The judges will read 80 books – 60 nominated by members of the Folio Academy and 20 drawn from publishers’ submissions.

The judges will announce eight finalists in February, and the prize – named for its sponsor, publisher The Folio Society – will announce its first winner in March.

The idea of a rival Booker with added Americans has been received sniffily by some in the British literary world. But Chabon says there is no downside to a new literary award. He thinks it will give a boost to under-appreciated authors and may help books become better known outside their countries of origin. And it’s fun.

“Prizes are awesome,” he said. “Who doesn’t like receiving a prize? Giving prizes is a fundamental human activity. We’ve been doing it as long as there have been human civilisations.

“I think it’s curmudgeonly or misanthropic for people to gripe about it or quibble about it. What more entertaining intellectual activity is there in the world than looking at the results of a prize you don’t agree with and completely taking it apart?

“It just gets people talking – and in this case it gets people talking about something I really care about.” - AP