Month: June 2018

The Nobel Delay

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Amanda Craig has written an article in The Daily Telegraph on May 5 about the one-year delay in awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Her website says: “Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN, and was educated at Bedales School and Clare College Cambridge”.  She has worked in advertising and PR before becoming a journalist and a novelist – currently working on her eighth novel.  Her last novel, Hearts And Minds, was long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction.

Amanda Craig

In the Telegraph article she says: “The world of literary prizes is such a vexed and vexatious one, and having rarely been listed for one myself, I may have a jaundiced view of their value.  The Nobel is, due to its sheer pecuniary value, supposedly the Big One, the Everest of achievement and the Moby Dick that has certain Booker winners checking their mobiles every year to see if they have won.

“Does any reader pick a novel because its author has won the prize?  The old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee so often comes to mind that those of us who love reading are often grateful to awards for making clear what or who is largely tedious and unreadable.  Let us not forget that the Swedish Academy rewarded Bob Dylan, who, though a revered singer-songwriter, is literature only to the wilder followers of Professor Christopher Ricks.

“What this absurd scandal – involving not a judge but the husband of a judge – obscures is that, although there are outstanding novelists, from Margaret Atwood to Philip Pullman, there is no great genius of literature currently writing in English.  Not one.  I remember the gloom that would descend of the board of the Society of Authors when, every year, we had to put forward a British author for consideration and could only come up with Harold Pinter.

“The trouble with all big prizes is that they lack definition.  What does ‘best’ mean?  Does it mean, as Jane Austin wrote in Northanger Abbey, a novel ‘in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest definition of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language’?

“Or does it mean a novel which is all about fine prose, but which dispenses with character, plot or even deep insight into the human condition?  Or, perhaps, indeed, a book in which wit and humour are wholly absent?

“All of us have encountered prize-winning novels like these, and all too often.”

As for me, I have, on several occasions, selected a novel by a Nobel winner, just to see what was special about it, and I have been disappointed.  I certainly agree with Ms Craig, and I have said so myself, that the remits of the major prizes need to be clarified, so that not everyone is trying to find that obscure and sometimes cranky, ‘best’  I rather like Jane Austin’s definition, though I would substitute ‘broadest’ for ‘happiest’.

My earliest suspicion that Ms Craig does, indeed, have a jaundiced view of the situation was confirmed by her penultimate sentence: “Usually, what the Nobel Prize seems to award above all is the possession of a penis.”

Review: Seeking Father Khaliq

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Pat Kennedy has posted this review of Seeking Father Khaliq on the IndieReader website:

“William Peace begins his modern allegory on a common allegorical premise – the quest. Professor al-Busiri is approached by an unannounced visitor and asked to meet Princess Basheera. When they meet, she has one request of him, to find Father Khaliq which she believes can be accomplished if the professor takes the Hajj. With only the advice to trust her and to use his wisdom and intuition, the professor is to take the religious pilgrimage in search of the mysterious Father Khaliq without a physical description of the man.

“What follows is a wonderful discussion of philosophy, religion, and individual motivation. Peace, having done extensive travel in the world, has a great understanding of how the major religions work and how various sects interpret their religious documents. The conflicts within Islam are discussed through various situations and conversation between Professor al-Busiri and fellow travelers as he undertakes his religious pilgrimage. As the professor travels along his path facing dangers and prejudices and encountering different sects and sometimes radical organizations, the reader gets a better understanding of the motives and problems of the middle east.

“Not only does Peace offer insight into Muslim philosophy and thought, through Professor al-Busiri’s memories and thoughts about his dead Christian wife, we’re given insight into the Christian faith in Egypt. Peace is skillful in incorporating the three major world religions into this allegorical writing and unlocking key ideas and thoughts as they are related to the modern Middle East and philosophical thought. The professors two sons represent two extremes of modern Middle Eastern life, with one joining the army and other the Muslim Brotherhood. Everywhere in the Professor’s world he finds conflict and opposing viewpoints. With his unfruitful search for Father Khaliq becoming an obsession, he continues to search for the answers he seeks.

“As the book is an allegory, it would have been beneficial to have included a glossary of terms and meanings. Peace does give a few clues within the text, for example, the surname of Princess Basheera is Chagma, meaning “wisdom,” and all major meanings are defined, but an inclusion of other meanings of names and terms would be an interesting addition. That doesn’t take away from the novel’s overall impact. As allegories do, SEEKING FATHER KHALIQ leads us to question own beliefs, asking if we have sought the right answers. A fascinating look into a world that affects us all.”

This is a very kind review.  I have to confess, that it is not my ‘extensive travels’ – though I have been to Egypt and Saudi Arabia – that have lead to the ‘great understanding’; it is many hours of internet research, including watching videos of the Hajj and Arba’een.  In fact, I spent more time on research for this book than I did on writing it.  This is probably an unusual ratio of research to writing for a novel, but may be quite typical of non-fiction.

I find it interesting that no mention is made of the focus of the book: one man’s search for God.  (Professor al-Busiri is a secular Muslim – an agnostic – ‘Khaliq’ is one of the more obscure 99 names for Allah.)  Maybe it’s out of fashion for reviewers to do God anymore.

“Publishers Live in Marble Palaces”

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That is the title of an interview in The Daily Telegraph of James Daunt, the managing director of Waterstones by Jake Kerridge, journalist and art critic.

James Daunt

Kerridge writes: “When HMV sold the Waterstones book chain to the Russian businessman Alexander Mamut in 2011, the company was hurtling towards the knacker’s yard. But Mamut made an inspired decision when he appointed Daunt as his managing director. The 54-year-old, the founder of the small but much-admired independent chain Daunt Books, has transformed the company, brought it back into the black, and defied predictions that the mighty Amazon was going to stomp bricks-and-mortar bookshops into oblivion.

“Now, though, the much-loved book chain faces another threat to its existence – from a ruthless hedge fund. Elliot Management, owned by the controversial New York billionaire Paul Singer, announced at the end of last month that it was buying the company from Mamut, sparking fears of asset stripping. Anne Stevens, CEO of British engineering firm GKN (in which Elliott has a stake) has complained that Elliott does not “give a crap” about long-term outcomes, and Singer himself was once described as a “financial terrorist” by the president of Argentina for his ruthless pursuit of debts.

Kerridge asks Daunt what he thinks about the prophesies of doom that blossomed at the acquisition by Elliott.  Daunt says: ‘We’re opening more shops than we’re closing. Some people have this notion that we’re always about to close shops – if we close one we must be going to close a hundred – which I simply don’t understand.’

When asked about future plans from Elliott, Daunt says, “I obviously have asked them why they’re buying us and what they expect, and the answer has been: ‘Carry on as you’re doing. We think that you can grow, and if you do grow, we’ll sell you for a profit’.”

“What Daunt has been doing has certainly been successful.  At the beginning of this year, Waterstones announced an 80 per cent jump in its annual profits.  The stores have become nicer places to visit, with more flowers and comfy furniture. He insists that staff make their own decisions about how their branches are run; every shop has a different customer demographic, so all key decisions – what books to stock, pricing structure, layout – have been left to branch managers. At the same time, readers have fallen back in love with physical books, something Daunt believes has to do with the power of the book as a decorative item.

“I ask him if he is bothered by reports of a crisis in “literary” fiction, with sales reportedly plummeting.  , ‘I’ve been nearly 30 years a bookseller,’ Daunt says, ‘and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything different. We sell astonishing numbers of whatever the latest literary bestseller is, and our bestselling book almost every year is a novel, and a literary novel at that. Publishers wring their hands and say woe is us and the end of the world is nigh. Nonetheless, when I started as a bookseller they were all in small buildings with rickety staircases. Now they’re in marble palaces along the Thames. I shouldn’t mock, but they really aren’t doing badly.”

“He is sanguine about the threat to reading posed by competing forms of entertainment, be it Netflix or social media. ‘Any parent, of which I’m one, who watches their children flick between a million things, thinks: are they going to sit down and read? But then I just think back to my childhood, and my parents were convinced that television was going to be the end of reading. I’m not so worried because books do provide astonishingly good entertainment.’

“After talking to him I have a quick look around and end up so beguiled I spend too much money and am late for my next appointment. Millions of people have the same experience in Waterstones’ branches across the country.”

I think it’s a welcome relief to hear that a major bookseller is growing and making money.  A retail, brick and mortar, bookstore can give us an up close and personal experience of books that no internet site can match.  And it’s nice to hear that publishers aren’t suffering as much as they would have us believe!

 

Why So Few Prizes for Female Writers?

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In her Guardian article on 23 January, Stephanie Merritt argues that female authors ‘rule literary fiction’, but receive few prizes.  This complaint, while it may be justified, is poorly documented.

Ms Merritt, born in 1974 in Surrey, is a literary critic, author and feature writer for the Observer and Guardian.  She read  English at Queens College and graduated from Cambridge University in 1996.  Her first novel, Gaveston, won the Betty Trask Award from the Society of Authors in 2002.  She has since written six historical novels featuring Giordano Bruno under the pseudonym S J Parris, and a memoir called The Devil Within, which was shortlisted for the Mind Book Award, about her experience coping with depression.

Stephanie Merritt at the 2016 Hay Festival

She says: “On the face of it, the revelation that female writers dominated the UK bestseller lists in 2017 might seem cause for celebration.  According to the Bookseller, only one man, Haruki Murakami made it to the top ten that saw a generation of female writers, including Sarah Perry, Naomi Alderman and Zadie Smith displace venerable fixtures of the literary landscape such as Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.

“But does this really represent a dramatic shift in the recognition of female literary talent?  The Bookseller list was compiled, by its own admission, according to a narrow definition of ‘literary’, limiting its choices principally to authors who have won, or been shortlisted for, major awards.

“Given the well-documented bias of the big prizes in favour of male authors – in 2015, the author Kamila Shamsie established that less than 40% of the titles submitted by publishers for the Booker in the previous five years had been by women – this results in a very small pool of eligible names.

“If you were to take at face value the discrepancy in coverage in major newspapers and journals, you might conclude that men are simply producing more ‘serious’ fiction than women.  But, as Francine Prose pointed out twenty years ago in her essay Scent of a Woman’s Ink, this is largely to do with an inherent bias in the way men’s and women’s wok is perceived.  When a male author writes about a family, it is regarded as social commentary; when a woman does, it’s a domestic tale.

“As recently at 2015, the author Catherine Nichols wrote about the experience of having her first novel universally rejected, only to meet with a very different response when she resubmitted it under a male pseudonym.”

I understand Ms Merritt’s complaint, and it is probably quite just, but this article doesn’t prove it.  She says that 9 of the top ten literary writers in 2017 were women, but women don’t receive a fair share of prizes.  Yet she says that one has to be a prize winner or shortlisted for a prize to make the list at all.

She says that less than 40% of the titles submitted for Booker consideration were by women.  All things being equal, this number should be 50%, and therefore, in my opinion, 40% does not result in a ‘very small pool’.

She refers to the ‘well documented bias’ of big prizes in favour of male authors.  It would have been useful to her case if she had cited some specifics.

That said, the points made by Francine Prose and Catherine Nichols appear to point to an injustice.

Seeking Father Khaliq wins!

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This time, I have a brief commercial message: a copy of the press release issued by the IndieReader Discovery Awards.

 

Contact:          William Peace                                                FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EMAIL ADDRESS       bill@williampeace.net

PHONE #                    +44 7841 976786

 

SEEKING FATHER KHALIQ

WINS 2018 INDIEREADER DISCOVERY AWARD FOR FICTON

June 2, 2018 – Today, Robin Cutler, Director of IngramSpark, announced the winners of the 2018 annual IndieReader Discovery Awards (IRDAs) at Book Expo America (BEA)/Book Con, a major trade show in New York City. Seeking Father Khaliq by William Peace won in the Fiction category.

IndieReader launched the IRDAs in order to help worthy indie authors get the attention of top indie professionals, with the goal of reaching more readers.  Noted Amy Edelman, founder of IR, “The books that won the IRDAs this year are not just great indie books; they are great books, period.  We hope that our efforts via the IRDAs insure that they receive attention from the people who matter most.  Potential readers.”

Judges for the awards included notable publishers, agents, publicists and bloggers. Seeking Father Khaliq was named a winner in the fiction category by IndieReader’s reviewers.

In Seeking Father Khaliq, Kareem al-Busiri, a secular philosophy professor at a distinguished Middle Eastern university, overcomes terror and tragedy to find spiritual fulfillment and love with the help of a real (or imagined?) Princess Basheera.

“For me this book was a labour of love,” said William Peace. “It brought together Islam, Christianity, love and terror, life and death, truth and dreams in a real but different world.”