Long and short of a literary stoushNew Zealand Herald, Saturday June 14, 2008By Julie Middleton
Literary heavyweights have ripped into the Montana New Zealand Book Awards after a shorter-than-usual fiction shortlist was deemed an "insult" to the country's senior writers.
The fiction judges chose four books rather than the usual five for the influential shortlist, released on Tuesday.
One of the judges, Lynn Freeman, a journalist and art critic, told the Herald that "while there were other great books, we did not want to dilute the Montana (finalist) sticker by promoting a fifth".
Former Penguin New Zealand boss and 2005 Montana judge Graham Beattie says on his popular blog that the decision is "clearly a major blunder and a PR disaster and a significant loss of book sales", as the front-cover sticker can significantly boost interest.
Mr Beattie told the Herald that to suggest a fifth book would dilute the shortlist's quality was an "insult" to high-profile Kiwi writers who penned well-reviewed books in 2007.
Mr Beattie has not actually seen the shortlist; awards publicist Penny Hartill says publishers submit books to the awards on a confidential basis.
Former Penguin New Zealand boss and 2005 Montana judge Graham Beattie says on his popular blog that the decision is "clearly a major blunder and a PR disaster and a significant loss of book sales", as the front-cover sticker can significantly boost interest.
Mr Beattie told the Herald that to suggest a fifth book would dilute the shortlist's quality was an "insult" to high-profile Kiwi writers who penned well-reviewed books in 2007.
Mr Beattie has not actually seen the shortlist; awards publicist Penny Hartill says publishers submit books to the awards on a confidential basis.
However, Mr Beattie says his own assessment suggests at least 12 authors whose recent work would have been entered. Although he admits that arts judging is a subjective process, "you cannot tell me that of those 12, they could not find one that was worthy. That's such a nonsense."
Read Julie Middleton's full story in the New Zealand Herald today or online here.
Perhaps we could take more of a Man Booker approach here - especially with the fiction titles - and have a longlist (hey! A Montana Dozen) publicised earlier, that a shortlist is then culled from (down to the Montana Half-Dozen - doesn't sound nearly as good) that the final winner could be chosen from.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone knows there are limited opportunities to achieve genuine market exposure for fiction titles in NZ (and this is essentially what this is all about) and with this approach more visibility could be given to a number of books.
I can hear people saying this will devalue the award but I actually think it will get the public in behind it more as we'd get a level of debate around the long-listed titles that we never see in this country.
There would be also, a manifest rise of "transperancy" in judging. Get the people talking books again!!