Oh No You Don't, Kev!

Compared to China, and perhaps elsewhere, Australia is abashed, sceptical and ironic about its writers. Literary prizes tend to raise little public attention: Australia has no equivalent, for example, of the Man Booker carnival, and there's no especial public esteem offered to the lucky recipients of awards. The Miles Franklin Award, arguably the country's most prestigious, raises an eyebrow, but has little hope of competing for cultural attention with the panoptical hyperbole of television or sport.

Gail Jones writes on the Guardian blog about why the newly established Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award (for which she has been shortlisted) is very important:

It seemed, simply by its announcement, to affirm a new commitment to literary culture, to legitimate its importance, and to suggest, almost heretically, that writing was an activity worthy of serious regard and reward.

and why, at the same time, the PM Kevin Rudd should not choose the winner.

And the nominations for the award are :

Fiction shortlist

Burning In by Mireille Juchau
El Dorado by Dorothy Porter
Jamaica: A novel by Malcolm Knox
Sorry by Gail Jones
The Complete Stories by David Malouf
The Widow and Her Hero by Tom Keneally
The Zookeeper's War by Steven Conte

Non-fiction shortlist

A History of Queensland by Raymond Evans
Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time by Clive James
My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani with Robert Hillman
Napoleon: The Path to Power, 1769-1799 by Philip Dwyer
Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers by Philip Jones
Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
Vietnam: The Australian War by Paul Ham

A full synopsis of all the books can be found in pdf's on the award website : fiction here and non-fiction here.

Good on Yer, Kev!

I think I'm in love with Kevin Rudd, Australia's new premier.

Yes, he may nibble his own ear wax and spend boozy nights in strip joints, he may (as Barry Humphries says) look like a dentist, and have the naffest bloke's name in the known universe.

But within hours of getting into office he not only ratified the Kyoto Protocol, he also announced a generous new literary prize for Australian authors. Now how's that for prioritising?

The Prime Minister's Literary Prize will reward the published fiction book of the year, and published non-fiction book of the year with the authors receiving a whopping A$100,000, (tax-free) the Australian reports. A further $100,000 is to be spent each year on promoting and administering the awards.

Only the IMPAC Dublin Literary award is worth more (£100,000).

Writers and publishers are, of course, overjoyed yesterday by the decision.

Because quite apart from the fact that authors often find it hard to make a living from their craft, an award like this sends out the message that writers are valued, and perks up public interest in books like nothing else.

Good on yer, Kev!

(Photo by Nicholas Johnfield on Flickr).