It's been in the works for a while, known pre-sponsor simply as the 'Literature Prize', but now all has been revealed, and with The Folio Society providing the cash (hey ! folks who actually deal with books ! unlike the backers of some other UK prizes ...) they've revealed they're calling it ... The Folio Prize.
The winning title gets £40,000, it's "open to all works of fiction written in English and published in the UK" -- meaning that, unlike the Man Booker, it will also consider US-authored works -- and, in another subtle dig at the Man Booker, they emphasize that: "All genres and all forms of fiction are eligible" (as the Man Booker is, theoretically, too, except somehow genre stuff never seems to get anywhere there ...).
They've come up with a pretty interesting way of going about the book-selection and judging process. Unlike the Man Booker -- impossible to take seriously because of the two-book-per-publisher entry limitation (with a few limited additional possibilities) -- they've established The Folio Prize Academy, from which the five judges will be selected every year, and whose hundred-plus members nominate sixty of the titles to be considered.
The Academy is a fairly solid cross-section of literary types -- ranging from the likes of big-name authors J.M.Coetzee (why on earth did he agree to play along ?), A.S.Byatt, John Banville, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, and Michael Ondaatje, all the way down to someone like Bret E. Ellis (a selection which admittedly calls the whole undertaking into question; if they'll stoop to him, why not James Frey ?). (Interestingly, among the academicians is Stuart Kelly -- a 2013 Man Booker judge who, presumably for that reason, has been recused (presumably just for this go-round).) All in all (with a few unfathomable exceptions) a very impressive -- and pretty wide-ranging -- collection of authors and critics.
So each academician -- save the five judges (not yet named for next year's prize) -- will get to nominate up to three books, and their selections are tallied (three points for each top mention, two for a second, one for a third) and the sixty top points-getters are automatically eligible for the prize. Twenty more titles are selected by the five judges -- with publishers invited to send a letter of support for "up to a maximum of five per publishing imprint" to help sway the judges.
All in all, it sounds like a far better selection method than the Man Booker's -- largely dependent on publisher-submissions, even as they limit the number any one can submit ... -- but it remains to be seen if it actually works. Do these authors actually read enough contemporary English-language fiction to name three books ? (I assume the critics do.) Will five or ten 'big' titles rack up all the points and something like a hundred titles wind up tied with one or two points apiece ? (I assume they did a test run, asking the academicians to name 2012 titles, to see if the numbers worked out; still, I have my concerns.)
There is also no word whether or not the 80-title-strong list of titles under consideration will then be made public. I can see no reason why it shouldn't be, but disappointingly there is no indication that it will be; it would be very disappointing if, like the Man Booker, they kept the list of titles under consideration secret.
Once eighty title have been selected, the five judges read them and select a shortlist of eight titles (which will be made public); then they select a winner.
Interestingly, while there are no entry costs (excellent !):
The big differences between this prize and the Man Booker -- its obvious competition -- is that this prize will also consider American titles (though it should be noted that the selecting academicians are predominantly Commonwealth folk) and that the selection process doesn't rely on publisher submissions (the Man Booker's fatal flaw -- compounded by the fact that there are severe restrictions placed on what publishers are allowed to submit).
(Just how terrible the Man Booker limitations are is suggested by this in Mark Brown's piece in The Guardian on the new prize:
I am looking forward to seeing how this all works out. If they publish the list of the eighty titles under consideration, that will already be a good sign; if not, well .....
The winning title gets £40,000, it's "open to all works of fiction written in English and published in the UK" -- meaning that, unlike the Man Booker, it will also consider US-authored works -- and, in another subtle dig at the Man Booker, they emphasize that: "All genres and all forms of fiction are eligible" (as the Man Booker is, theoretically, too, except somehow genre stuff never seems to get anywhere there ...).
They've come up with a pretty interesting way of going about the book-selection and judging process. Unlike the Man Booker -- impossible to take seriously because of the two-book-per-publisher entry limitation (with a few limited additional possibilities) -- they've established The Folio Prize Academy, from which the five judges will be selected every year, and whose hundred-plus members nominate sixty of the titles to be considered.
The Academy is a fairly solid cross-section of literary types -- ranging from the likes of big-name authors J.M.Coetzee (why on earth did he agree to play along ?), A.S.Byatt, John Banville, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, and Michael Ondaatje, all the way down to someone like Bret E. Ellis (a selection which admittedly calls the whole undertaking into question; if they'll stoop to him, why not James Frey ?). (Interestingly, among the academicians is Stuart Kelly -- a 2013 Man Booker judge who, presumably for that reason, has been recused (presumably just for this go-round).) All in all (with a few unfathomable exceptions) a very impressive -- and pretty wide-ranging -- collection of authors and critics.
So each academician -- save the five judges (not yet named for next year's prize) -- will get to nominate up to three books, and their selections are tallied (three points for each top mention, two for a second, one for a third) and the sixty top points-getters are automatically eligible for the prize. Twenty more titles are selected by the five judges -- with publishers invited to send a letter of support for "up to a maximum of five per publishing imprint" to help sway the judges.
All in all, it sounds like a far better selection method than the Man Booker's -- largely dependent on publisher-submissions, even as they limit the number any one can submit ... -- but it remains to be seen if it actually works. Do these authors actually read enough contemporary English-language fiction to name three books ? (I assume the critics do.) Will five or ten 'big' titles rack up all the points and something like a hundred titles wind up tied with one or two points apiece ? (I assume they did a test run, asking the academicians to name 2012 titles, to see if the numbers worked out; still, I have my concerns.)
There is also no word whether or not the 80-title-strong list of titles under consideration will then be made public. I can see no reason why it shouldn't be, but disappointingly there is no indication that it will be; it would be very disappointing if, like the Man Booker, they kept the list of titles under consideration secret.
Once eighty title have been selected, the five judges read them and select a shortlist of eight titles (which will be made public); then they select a winner.
Interestingly, while there are no entry costs (excellent !):
In the event of a book being shortlisted for the prize, the publisher in question will be asked to make a contribution of £4,000 towards marketing and promotional costs.The amount squares with the 'contribution' of "£5,000 towards general publicity" the Man Booker folk expect/demand/extort -- though admirably the Folio Prize does allow that:
However, this stipulation is subject to appeal by a publisher for whom such expenditure would prove prohibitive and may be adjusted or waived at the discretion of the Foundation.(See the full rules and procedures -- the prize constitution (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- here.)
The big differences between this prize and the Man Booker -- its obvious competition -- is that this prize will also consider American titles (though it should be noted that the selecting academicians are predominantly Commonwealth folk) and that the selection process doesn't rely on publisher submissions (the Man Booker's fatal flaw -- compounded by the fact that there are severe restrictions placed on what publishers are allowed to submit).
(Just how terrible the Man Booker limitations are is suggested by this in Mark Brown's piece in The Guardian on the new prize:
Kamila Shamsie was among the many novelists supporting the prize. She said she liked that it was not dependent on publishers' nominations, which is largely the case with the Booker. She recalled advice for her to move to a publisher which did not have a big fiction list to get a better chance of being nominated. "That goes to show there is something basically wrong in the idea ... that the stronger your imprint is, the less chance your writers have of getting in there."Shamsie, too, is one of the Folio academicians, by the way .....)
I am looking forward to seeing how this all works out. If they publish the list of the eighty titles under consideration, that will already be a good sign; if not, well .....