Literary Prize Cultures: A Fairer Future?

Abstract

In June 2022, Costa Coffee announced that they would no longer be running the Costa Book Awards, one of the UK's most significant series of awards for fiction, children's books, poetry, non-fiction, and short fiction. The cancellation of the awards was sudden, with many from the world of publishing and literature, including former judges for the award, taking to Twitter to express their devastation and frustration at this ‘shock’ news. In the weeks that followed, more prizes seemed to follow suit. While the comings and goings of cultural awards, and near-constant threat to their financial security, is by no means a new phenomenon, the announcements of the termination and financial uncertainty of a number of major literary prizes in the UK, exposed the precarity of the cultural award sector more broadly. This article uses the demise of, or threat to, long-standing literary awards in the UK as a point of examination of the current funding and organisational model(s) favoured by prize-giving organisations to ascertain their sustainability and longevity. The termination of some of the most prominent and commercial literary awards in the UK suggests that such literary award models require a rethink of what prizes should contribute to culture and how. Accordingly, this article considers the current administrative and funding models of literary awards and questions whether we need to reassess how awards should celebrate and reward cultural achievements, and sustainable ways in which they can continue to support creators.

Keywords:

• literary prizes
• Costa Book Awards
• prize culture
• literary awards
• funding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, for example: @DannyVanBooks, ‘Terrible news … but now thinking @YorkshireTea #BookAwards has lovely ring to it … guys?? Tea and books are perfect companions!’ Twitter, 10 June 2022, 2:19 pm, twitter.com/DannyVanBooks/status/1535250198842195968; @NeilDenham1978, ‘Booo to @CostaCoffee! Come on @_CaffeNero_ this is your moment … Costa book awards scrapped suddenly after 50 years.’ Twitter, 11 June 2022, 8:41 am, twitter.com/NeilDenham1978/status/1535527588810072066.

2 @LittleToller, ‘Gosh this is terrible news. My only conclusion is this is a cost cutting exercise surely another sponsor could have been found … ’ Twitter, 10 June 2022, 12:22 pm, twitter.com/LittleToller/status/1535220876005806083.

3 @TheSallyGardner, ‘Costa book awards scrapped suddenly after 50 years. Such sad news. I was proud to have won a Costa Award. Feel this is a terrible loss, At such difficult times for writers.’ Twitter, 11 June 2022, 7:37 am, twitter.com/TheSallyGardner/status/1535511401342574595; @NovelFinds, ‘What — just like that! Have you sought another sponsor? In these terrible times, good books are more vital than ever.’ Twitter, 11 June 2022, 7:26 am, twitter.com/NovelFinds/status/1535508647417102336.

4 This is slightly misleading, since although Costa Coffee took over the sponsorship of the Whitbread Book Awards, Costa Coffee is in fact a subsidiary of Whitbread PLC, and so this is not necessarily evidence of a sponsor takeover but a rebranding of the awards.

5 Also see ‘Literary Prizes, Writers’ Organisations and Canon Formation in Africa’ for more on the Caine Prize and its role in productions of value(s) and canonisation in African Literature. (Kiguru, ‘Literary Prizes’).

6 For more, see: Benjamin Mueller, ‘What is Austerity and How Has It Affected British Society?’ New York Times, 24 Feb. 2019, nytimes.com/2019/02/24/world/europe/britain-austerity-may-budget.html. Accessed 29 Sept. 2022; Polly Toynbee and David Walker, ‘The Lost Decade: The Hidden Story of How Austerity Broke Britain.’ The Guardian, 3 Mar. 2020, theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/03/lost-decade-hidden-story-how-austerity-broke-britain. Accessed 29 Sept. 2022; Krishnah Poinasamy, The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality (Oxfam International, 2013). Available at: cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/cs-true-cost-austerity-inequality-uk-120913-en_0.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept. 2022.

7 For more on the influences of contemporary and historical politics on prize culture, see: Dessa Bayrock and Sarah Brouillette, ‘Who Wins? The Politics of Prize Culture in Canada’s CODE Burt Awards.’ Wasafiri, vol. 37, no. 1, 2022, pp. 86–94, doi: 10.1080/02690055.2022.1999686; Sarah Brouillette, Postcolonial Writers in the Global Literary Marketplace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Julia Lovell, The Politics of Cultural Capital: China’s Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature (U of Hawai’i P, 2006); Luke Strongman, The Booker Prize and the Legacy of Empire (Brill, 2002).