Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.Robert McCrum quotes "the laureate of literary failure" Samuel Beckett in this Guardian piece about the value of literary prizes and how most literary endeavors are doomed to end in failure ...:
First, there are the countless manuscripts completed, but never published, and the hours of frustrated composition tossed into the wastepaper basket. Then there are the thousands of books published, but not reviewed. These, in turn, are matched by the scores of titles reviewed, but scarcely sold.So ... erm ... why are you still writing?
McCrum notes that this is the season for the longlists and shortlists for all kinds of awards, and I've been very slipshod missing some of the news, so this is a catch-all catch-up!
Remember I posted the shortlist for the Ondaatje Prize the other day? Well, Hisham Matar walked away with it for In the Country of Men. (Am applauding for a book I love.)
Remember I mentioned the National Short Story Prize? (Of course you do - after all the argument about whether Kureishi's story being pulled by the BBC was censorship or not.) Anyway it was won by Julian Gough with David Almond being named as runner-up.
And I thought you might like to know that Rosie Thomas (right) won the 2007 Romantic Novel of the Year award for Iris and Ruby!
But the pleasantest award surprise has to be that a Malaysian won a Pulitzer Prize!
More award news to come ...
6 comments:
Yayasan Warisan Johor is running its second Johor novel competition, in Malay. You submit manuscripts rather than published novels. Last year Faisal Tehrani won more than one prize, including for an epistolary novel. The PDF didn't seem to work when I tried to open it but a friend said the deadline is December and the first prize is RM30,000 and publication; you can always email them for more info.
Our Pulitzer prize winner is a BBGS girl!!!
Some of the greatest and creative minds have come from this school which emphasised good decent universal values.
However the Government knocked the school down in 2001.
amir - didn't know the comp was open to folks from outside johor! must post this up
many thanks
animah - ahem. but the staff and kids moved to bandar tun razak to become sri bintang
A Malaysian winning a Pulitzer! Phoo-arr! Big congrats to Mei Fong.
And thanks to Bib for posting this; I missed it on Monday.
Yes. That's wonderful news indeed--a Mlaysian winning a Pulitzer.
Btw, American Gods is an excellent book. Have you read the Sandman comics written by Gaiman as well?
I've updated my lit blog with a post on why do I still write. Do share your input, though.
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