Judging a book
Sir: Paul Johnson is quite right to be suspicious of the cosy coteries of mutual backscratchers that dominate the London literary world and of their unhealthy influ- ence on the administration of some book prizes (The press, 20 January).
To try to do something to counter the pernicious effects of this smug closed shop the Sunday Express three years ago laun- ched its £20,000 Book of the Year Award, which aims to remind readers annually that there are still being published some novels that are not only immensely readable and unpretektious but also stylish and literate. Our 1989 winner, for instance, Rose Tre- main's Restoration, is not only much more fun to read than the Booker Prize winner by Kazuo Ishiguro but is also much more credible and distinguished as a work of literature. And while Booker judges have ignored the merits of authors like William Boyd, Graham Greene, P. D. James, Hilary Mantel, Colin Thubron, Keith Waterhouse and Mary Wesley, all seven have been shortlisted for the Sunday Ex- press Award in its first three years.
To select such worthy novelists each year it is vital to have panels of judges who are themselves intelligent but eminently read- able novelists, untainted by membership of any of the cliques of literary pseuds and poseurs who have so misled and alienated the reading public by trying to make them believe that the likes of Salman Rushdie and Fay Weldon are great writers. The reason the Sunday Express Award has already become a serious rival of the Booker is not only because it highlights books that people might actually enjoy reading but also because our judges so far have included perceptive but unpreten- tious authors of the calibre of Kingsley Amis, Roald Dahl, Monica Dickens, Clare Francis, Susan Hill, Hammond Innes, Ruth Rendell and Auberon Waugh.
Such judges are not going to be conned by trendy fashions or inflated reputations, and Paul Johnson is misguided to suggest that judges of literary prizes should not be novelists themselves. That would mean that awards would be judged solely by critics and academics who are probably only critics and academics because they are incapable of writing decent novels them- selves.
Graham Lord
Literary Editor, Sunday Express, 243 Blackfriars Road, London SE1
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