On Being on The Orange

Am I delighted about The Room of Lost Things being longlisted for the Orange prize? Absolutely. Would I love it to be on the shortlist next week? D’uh!

Despite acknowledging I do have something of a recognisable 'name', I’m also very aware that all my books haven’t necessarily had commensurate sales, I’ve never quite had that big breakthrough book that publishers have hoped for me (and hope for this one!), and while many of my novels have been optioned, something has always got in the way, so there’s never been the big sales boost that a good television or film adaptation would have given them. When State of Happiness was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2004 it made a big difference to sales and the same thing has happened with The Room of Lost Things. With any piece of work, we want it to do well, but sometimes a piece of work is extra special to us – this novel about ‘my’ south London, ‘my’ white working class, definitely fits into that category, and of course I’m hungry to see it in more shop windows and display cases and on till receipts. Like any writer, I can only truly write to please myself and, ideally, my publisher! None of us can guarantee we know the market well enough to second-guess it successfully – so of course I’m grateful for anything that encourages people to take more interest in my work.

Am I worried about the various (annual) assertions that the Orange is sexist or unnecessary or out-dated? Well, given the increased attention for the book it would be stupid of me to mind. Far more importantly though, given that women across the world are still routinely denied access to education, to literacy and numeracy skills, and that there are rising fundamentalist regimes that would like to continue to deny any education to any women – and bearing in mind that this is an INTERNATIONAL prize – I’m all for anything that promotes the work of women.

Yes, there are very many successful women writers, very many women working in publishing. I'm not sure we could also say that there are as many publishing/media women CEOs as there are men. Or, looking for role models closer to home for our children, as many women secondary school Heads as there are men. We simply didn't achieve all the goals of feminism yet. We didn’t get basic equality yet - not broad spectrum, international, basic equality. And as long as women routinely do the bulk of child and family care, routinely earn less than men, routinely find ourselves under-represented in government and in business (and that's only in relatively wealthy modern Britain, things are - of course - far less fair in very many other places), then anything that redresses the balance is fine with me. Yes of course I’m concerned about the crisis in male literacy. But I do wonder how many male writers were concerned about the crisis in female literacy when we weren’t allowed to even learn to read and write for millennia, let alone publish under our own names, and when plenty of women are still, through poverty or violently repressive anti-women laws, denied that ’privilege’ across the world.

And, you know, I don't mind that the MOBO prizes are only for music of black-origin. I don't mind that the Commonwealth prize is only for Commonwealth writers, I don't suppose many non-Commonwealth writers do either. I don't even moan (much!) any more when year after year most of the directors and writers nominated for Academy Awards and Baftas and Oliviers and every other arty award are mostly men, or when a quick glance across the television and radio listings for one week shows that something like seventy percent of our drama and comedy is written by men, and no-one seems to notice or care that women are either not breaking into those ranks or, perhaps even more disturbingly, their work simply isn't valued as highly. (The old myth that women write about women and men write about men, compounded by an assumption that stories concerning men’s lives are universal while those of women are ’domestic’ and therefore of less value.) It's just a prize. They are all ‘just’ prizes. For the people on the list, it's lovely, my experience is that it does make a difference and I’m grateful for that. For those not on the list, whatever that list may be, long or short, for any number of prizes, it’s upsetting and annoying. (Sadly I know that feeling too!)

Meanwhile though, I’m sure that every writer on the Orange longlist now, those on the shortlist when it’s announced next week - as well as the writers not on either - are already hard at work on their next book and they care equally passionately about that one. I know I do.

Posted 10/04/2008 14:30:05 by Stella Duffy with 0 comments.