We have always been told not to judge a book by its cover, so when did it become acceptable to judge a book by its author? Or, more specifically, the author’s sex and ethnic origins?
Last week the longlist for the Samuel Johnson Award for non-fiction was announced which prompted a blog complaining that the list was: “all-white and only five women”.
As a British-Indian woman writer, neither element had occurred to me. My reactions ranged from being thrilled to see William Dalrymple’s Return of a King after I’d helped edit the manuscript, to immediately buying Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s The Pike, and reminding myself to finish Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon. Certainly it’s permissible to dispute the nominated books if there are glaringly obvious absentees. But the complaints were never followed up with a list of alternative authors and books or reasoned argument in favour of either. In a blog about judging the prize, Mary Beard wrote that it’s impossible not to reflect on the different male and female styles in non-fiction but that ultimately “would I recommend this book to a friend”?
Knee-jerk reactions to representations of skin colour and sex have become so commonplace that individual worth is increasingly overlooked in place of colour-coordinated, gender-related head counts. Naturally when it comes to Parliament, or councils and committees with whom my fate rests, I want to see members chosen who best represent my voice and who reflect the diversity of the society in which we live.
But if I thought I had been hired for my job because I have brown skin, wear a bra, and make the masthead look exotic, I’d be nothing short of livid. I should be there because I’m the best candidate for the role, I can edit more tightly than anyone else who applied, and I understand what constitutes a dangling modifier. After all, I want to feel like my two degrees were worth my time and hard work.
And of course this isn’t just restricted to ethnic origins or gender.
Only recently an article appeared in the Guardian expressing outrage that a grammar-school pupil who had achieved 7 A* at A-level had been rejected by Merton College, Oxford, yet accepted by Harvard and Stanford. Oxford’s standard rejection letter revealed little about the reason behind their decision, but it’s a gross accusation to cry blanket elitism without scratching beneath the surface. Perhaps the pupil didn’t interview well, maybe the other candidates – in addition to having similar grades – were county tennis captains, debating champions or musical geniuses. Only recently I’ve seen job applications attached to CVs packing first-class Oxbridge degrees, enviable internships and numerous awards. These included: a food writer who misspelt Gordon Ramsay; a fact-checker who highlighted his 14-hour “shits” on Newsnight and a travel writer who turned up 90 minutes late for an interview because she couldn’t find her way to the office. The decisions to hire, or not to hire, boiled down to the individual’s worth and their suitability for the position.
Which brings me back to books.
Two days ago the Man Booker shortlist was announced. “Only one British author on shortlist” said the Daily Mail. And when this year’s Guardian First Book Award shortlist revealed seven women and four men, one blog declared, “yet more vindication that the reading public want female literary talent to be recognised”. Well, no, not really, that’s what the Women’s Prize for Fiction is for. The argument that awards should represent women as 50 per cent of the population holds no water. Women might make up 50 per cent of the population – but do they make up 50 per cent of the writing population? Currently the Top 100 books on Amazon contain only 26 books written by women – 27 if you include Robert Galbraith/ J K Rowling – which seems a better indication of what the book-buying public is reading.
A good book needs energy, soul, and fabulous writing, and it doesn’t matter where its author comes from or whether they have to stand or sit to pee. The last two books I read were Jim Crace’s Harvest because the opening paragraph was at once lyrically beautiful, intriguing and unnerving, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland because I’ve loved her other work. And unlike V S Naipaul, I can’t claim to be able to identify female prose from the outset – if at all. George Eliot aka Mary Ann Evans used a pen name to make sure her works were taken seriously, and I remember aged nine, reading Silas Marner at school, adoring the book and being none the wiser about the sex of the writer.
It’s not about where the author was born, what passport they hold or whether they are women or men, it’s about an individual’s worth and their words should speak for themselves.
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