|
The
Orange Prize, first run
in 1996, is the brainchild of a group of
reviewers, agents, publishers, librarians and journalists, who desired
both to raise the profile of women’s writing and to reach a large
quantity of British readers. It’s fitting that the criteria for
entry are only two: one must only be a member of the fairer sex and
write in English. But despite this elegance, the Orange manages to raise
some provocative – and messy - issues.
Last
year’s prize, won by Zadie Smith with On
Beauty, saw Institute of Ideas director Claire Fox on the judging
panel. Her speech
at Orange’s conference for librarians put forward the idea that
fiction should be surprising and challenging, that it should take us
somewhere new. And
this year broadcaster and writer Muriel Gray, chair of the judges, carried
on this theme, issuing a clarion-call to women writers to stop limiting
themselves to domestic situations and to start making
stuff up. As usual, the Orange challenges perceptions of women’s
writing and the role of literature, kicking up even more of a storm
this year by longlisting two books which between them have already won
£75,000 in literary prizes.
Culture
Wars is dedicated to doing more than just ‘curling up in front
of the fire’ with literature, and seeks to explore the issues
it raises and meet them head on. To this end our coverage of the Orange
Prize attempts to iron out the issues in women's writing. Should female
writers be chained to kitchen-sink fiction or should they be expanding
boundaries beyond domestic bliss? Should women writers be doing anything
in particular at all? Is it wise to pick out women writers as a distinct
category or does this simply confuse things?
NEW:
Culture
Wars' Orange Prize coverage is now available in one user-friendly printable
pamphlet. For best results, print on both sides, fold,
and staple at the margin. Alternatively, there is a conventional printer-friendly
version.
Features
NEW:
Do we need the Orange Prize to support women writers?
The whole point of the award - to give special recognition to women
on the basis of their exclusion from the mainstream - seems so bizarre
that even the sponsors seem faintly embarrassed by it.
Munira Mirza
The
Orange Prize: Friend or Phony?
Culture
Wars' commissioning editor for books considers a vexed question
Sarah Boyes
Flushed
with Orange
An independent publisher's perspective on the
Orange Prize
Helen Miles, Solidus
Reviews
Half
of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - WINNER
None of Adichie’s characters are free of
humanising flaws, and in this, perhaps, lies her greatest strength as
an author. She is merciless in pinpointing the prejudices that can divide
not only whole nations, but classes, villages, and even families.
Emily Turnbull
Poppy
Shakespeare by Clare Allan
What the novel is clearly saying to us all is:
put any ‘sane’ person or reader into an institutional environment,
and subject them to all the pettinesses and paranoia of that institution;
can you be surprised when in the end you too become absorbed into that
life?
Brenda Stones
Arlington
Park by Rachel Cusk - SHORTLISTED
‘Elegant’ is something Cusk almost pulls off, but it's always
overshadowed. A nice passage about an oversized kitchen that vaguely
echoes a Tom Wolfe-style ‘dog-eat-dog-eat-possession’ paranoia
is ruined by a dreadful internal monologue about personal failure.
Sam Haddow
The
Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai - SHORTLISTED
The marketing kitsch-up describes the book as ‘a radiant, funny
and moving family saga… described by reviewers as “the best,
sweetest, most delightful novel”’. Yes, there are various
families involved, but there was little that was sweet or delightful
about marital rape, racism and street massacres.
Anna Leach
Peripheral
Vision by Patricia Ferguson
Be prepared for an education in the cringe-inducing arts of post-enucleation
socket syndrome, conjunctival incisions and the revelation that if a
kitten’s eyelid is sewn shut the eye will go blind.
John L Rosewarne
Over
by Margaret Forster
Forster is unable to sustain interest in this
nuclear family fallout through the whole novel. Once the details of
Miranda’s death are revealed, the momentum evaporates. Forster’s
writing throughout is clean and crisp, resisting melodramatic perorations,
but the lack of narrative strand does lead to dry, often lifeless text.
Dean
Nicholas
The
Dissident by Nell Freudenberger
it is a supreme irony that Cece Travers, in her eagerness to be understanding
and welcoming to the artist, imprisons Zhao in the role of the Dissident
by her own expectations, which are entirely incongruent with Zhao’s
view of himself.
Andrew Wheelhouse
When
to Walk by Rebecca Gower
The novel is a bid like a ‘taking your pencil for a walk’
drawing: what’s important is not where the pencil goes, or where
it ends up, but the picture it leaves behind. And what is left behind
is a portrait of Ramble in four dimensions.
Dolan Cummings
A
Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu
Guo - SHORTLISTED
Z has managed an emancipation which has enabled her to see all human
interaction as belonging to discourse – merely a matter of choice.
This choice has led her (and the reader) through an odyssey which feels
a good deal more intimate than its pan-continental scope would suggest.
Sam Haddow
The
Observations by Jane Harris - SHORTLISTED
Hmm, one is supposed to say, a real, vital, human voice has been found
here, what a wonderful, picaresque creation. In actuality, Bessy’s
sense of speech comes across as no more realistic than that of Mrs Potts
from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
James
Topham
The
Girls by Lori Lansens
Forced always to
be in the same place, sharing a blood supply, Rose and Ruby are
an extreme version of any close relationship; siblings, best friends,
or a married couple. Even that alone might make a thin novel, but it’s
only one strand of the story.
Timandra Harkness
Alligator
by Lisa Moore
Moore spends too much time telling me what her characters are feeling
with these woolly phrases. If she had indulged in a plot I might have
been able to see what was at stake for her characters and maybe given
a damn. But she just lays it out.
John Dennen
What
Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
Kate’s naïveté is conveyed by the narrative directly.
Striking the balance between a faux innocence and the ‘truth’
sensed by the reader is a delicate business and one which shows O’Flynn’s
writing ability to its greatest effect.
Beth James
The
Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
Considered in light of the chair of judges Muriel Gray’s plea
however; that female writers ‘dream bigger dreams’, ‘take
risks’ and use their imagination, The Tenderness of Wolves stands
tall as a work of considerable ambition.
Helen Birtwistle
Careless
by Deborah Robertson
Whilst these ‘tiny family dramas’ would most likely be exactly
what Muriel Gray laments over in women’s literature, what Robertson
has done is turned them into a neat storyline that impacts more than
those directly involved with the main plots.
Kiranjeet
Kaur Gill
Afterwards
by Rachel Seiffert
Isn’t it weird how an oppressive military regime isn’t just
dehumanising to its subjects but, like, totally dehumanising to the
oppressors as well?
David
Bowden
Ten
Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley
Although Hollywood loves to satirise itself, it is difficult to see
how Ten Days could ever be filmed, even discounting the troublesome
erections
David
Bowden
Digging
to America by Anne Tyler - SHORTLISTED
Like most of Anne Tyler’s books, this one is well-observed, the
characters are inconsistent in the way that real people are, which makes
them believable, and the details that tell the story are small, convincing
ones.
Timandra
Harkness
The
Housekeeper by Melanie Wallace
These are characters without character; they have
no morality, no will, no responsibility. How soon you realise their
inability to speak and absence of name signifies lack of participation
impacts heavily on how effectively they work.
Sarah Boyes
|
