― Winterland, Thursday, 18 December 2003 17:02 (twenty years ago) link
1969: P. H. Newby Something to Answer For
1970: Bernice Rubens The Elected Member
1971: V.S. Naipaul In a Free State
1972: John Berger G
1973: J.G. Farrell Siege of Krishnapur
1974: Stanley Middleton Holiday
1975: Nadine Gordimer The Conversationalist and Ruth Prower Jhabvala Heat and Dust
1976: David Storey Saville
1977: Paul Scott Staying On
1978: Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea
1979: Penelope Fitzgerald Offshore
1980: William Golding Rites of Passage
1981: Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children
1982: Thomas Keneally Schindler's Ark
1983: J.M. Coetzee Life and Times of Michael K.
1984: Anita Brookner Hotel Du Lac
1985: Keri Hulme Bone People
1986: Kingsley Amis The Old Devils
1987: Penelope Lively Moon Tiger
1988: Peter Carey Oscar and Lucinda
1989: Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day
1990: A.S. Byatt Possession
1991: Ben Okri The Famished Road
1992: Michael Ondaatje The English Patient and Barry Unsworth Sacred Hunger
1993: Roddy Doyle Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1994: James Kelman How Little It Was, How Late
1995: Pat Barker The Ghost Road
1996: Graham Swift Last Orders
1997: Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things
1998: Ian McEwan Amsterdam
1999: J.M. Coetzee Disgrace
2000: Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin
2001: Peter Carey True History of the Kelly Gang
2002: Yann Martel Life of Pi
2003: D.B.C. Pierre Vernon God Little
― Winterland, Thursday, 18 December 2003 17:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris Hill (Chris Hill), Thursday, 18 December 2003 17:42 (twenty years ago) link
and here are the national book award winners. i was surprised by how many i had read on here! and how much good stuff is on it. but there is your us/uk divide. i've read dozens of books on the NBA list and no doubt on the pulitzer list as well, but i haven't read ANYTHING on the Booker list. sad isn't it? i did buy Possession a while back and i'm kinda looking forward to that.
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 18 December 2003 17:52 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 18 December 2003 18:08 (twenty years ago) link
And I was just going to post that I've had good results from reading Whitbread Prize winners (like the terrific 'English Passengers' by Matthew Kneale which I just finished. It beat 'White Teeth to win the Whitbread)
― LondonLee (LondonLee), Thursday, 18 December 2003 18:17 (twenty years ago) link
but as far as fiction goes it seems to be the one that follows a lot of the book threads on ile: a lot of faves for ilxors are on there.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 19 December 2003 09:28 (twenty years ago) link
― unfazed, Thursday, 8 January 2004 18:25 (twenty years ago) link
― charles hanson (whynotsneeze), Thursday, 8 January 2004 18:54 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 10 January 2004 01:49 (twenty years ago) link
Myself, I tend to trust the book awards not at all; even the National Book Award committee, recently, seems always to agree with the trade publications. (The Shipping News? _Really_?) The short-story awards tend to be somewhat more useful, just because the idea, there, is to provide a _selection_ of praiseworthy stories, all of which are likely to have been read by the editors (whose names are often right there on the collection cover, for better or worse, whether Oates or Elkin or Wideman). This way a number of different criteria can be applied, and the stories can be taken on their own terms. On the other hand, any prize offered to merely a single book is all too likely to be influenced by the implied politics of the choice, leading to selections of books that very neatly fit the "specifications" of an award-winning book. While this can lead to true classics being chosen, it's more or equally likely to pander to moralistic or salvationist treacle.
As far as I can tell, the book awards have been chugging along on their own steam, with very little relevance to quality (above a certain measure of literacy/canniness), and will continue to do so. It shouldn't really be a point of bitterness, as long as one understands that winning one of the major awards is a boon akin to winning a lottery, not winning a footrace.
M.
― Matthew K (mtk), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Steve Walker (Quietman), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:58 (twenty years ago) link
― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 03:03 (twenty years ago) link
Here's a link to a site with lots and lots of links to literary award sites: Literature Awards.
― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 5 February 2004 11:45 (twenty years ago) link
The James Joyce Award: a roll call of titans
― alimosina, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 18:27 (eleven years ago) link
From the little I could glean from the wikipedia article, it appears that the James Joyce prize is awarded by a society of university students, whose callow judgment is well-reflected in the list of recipients.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 18:44 (eleven years ago) link