“These elements of scandal, by now familiar in the #MeToo era, claimed an unusual casualty on Friday: The Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s most prestigious accolade for writing.” In the wake of a sex abuse scandal, The Swedish Academy announced it will postpone this year’s award until next year when they will name two winners. In the meantime, maybe we should all mull over the problem with prestigious prizes.
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RIP Black Pepper
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Problems with prestigious prizes. I am really concerned about the way some accusations are presented. Ms. Clemmon’s accusation against Diaz in Australia was presented almost like a stunt. This is not a game. If you have been sexually assaulted or harassed, it is a crime and one must go to police, or get a lawyer, rather than take part in this gleeful kind of anonymous confrontation in the guise of a question for a writer on a panel. Not mature, not credible.
Re women writers paid less than men, take “girl” or “wife” out of the title. These ubiquitious and unintellectual books are generally in trade paperback, so 10 or 20 dollars less in price. I do nothing but roll my eyes in book stores now.
Having said that women writers are great. Lily Tuck, Mary Gordon, Sarah Hall, Sigrid Nunez, for example, deserve every penny they make publishing in hardcover, and the prices in Canada (35-38 dollars) equals that of men writers: Laurence Osborne and Robert Coover for example. I am willing to cough up my hard earned money for quality, but not for “girl/wife” thrillers.
I see no difference in pricing, especially in non fiction, where prices range from 35 dollars and up to 50, for literary biography and history, written by either sex.