Anorak News » Blog Archive » Zadie Smith Writes Wrongs In Willesden

ZADIE Smith is writing in the Willesden Herald, one of Anorak’s local papers:

Dear Willesden Herald Readers,

This is a difficult thing to write. Just like everybody, we at The Willesden Herald are concerned about the state of contemporary literature…We created this prize to support unpublished writers, and, with our five grand, we put our money where our mouths are. We have tried to advertise widely across this great internet of ours and to make the conditions of entry as democratic and open as we could manage. There is no entry fee, there are no criteria of age, race, gender or nation. The stories are handed over to the judges stripped of the names of the writers as well as any personal detail concerning them (if only The Booker worked like that!) Our sole criterion is quality. We simply wanted to see some really great stories… But in the end – we have to be honest – we could not find the greatness we’d hoped for. It’s for this reason that we have decided not to give out the prize this year…

She concludes:

So, let’s try again, yes? All the requirements for entry you will find below…

Yours sincerely,

Zadie Smith

Smith could be trying out to win her own prize. Her note runs to 842 words. But Smith should hang about, because some of the replies to her published missive are worthy of reproduction:

I am, admittedly, a heavy user of crack cocaine, but I’m pretty sure that the other day I read a notification saying that the shortlisted writers had received word of their success… Ah, success! How fleeting your kisses, how fickle the wobble of your thighs.Mucho admiracion para Zadie and Stephen’s high-minded standards, and for the carefully worded call to excellence (fail better, mothafockas!) but I suspect there are ten or so people out there who were recently tap-dancing on the moon and are now staring at their shoes, kicking at the dust, wondering what they did wrong. Which is a shame, non?

It is hard to believe that out of 800 or so entries, not one winner? Not even a shortlist!!?? I know several very good writers that entered this. I doubt if they sent shoddy work.It’s easy for those who are already established to forget that a prize like this is important. It gave Vanesssa Gebbie a foothold. Maybe that’s why she’s so pleased there is no one to take her crown…

As the shortlisted writers had already been advised (yes, I saw that posting too, which later disappeared)would it not be more fair to divide the prize between them rather to withhold it entirely? At least that would acknowledge their efforts and their partial success, as would an announcement as to who they were. To let people know they were shortlisted, let them think they would be published in the anthology (which I assume has also been abandoned) and then to pull the rug out entirely seems both parsimonious and cruel and unlikely to encourage entrants next year.

Hi - 1: It was absolutely the right thing to do. I think ZS’s explanation was extremely clear and totally valid. If this generous prize is to be taken seriously, it has to be taken seriously. If you catch my drift. 2: Sure, there’s been a little fumbling. But this can’t have been an easy decision, and let’s go easy on the beneficent folks behind the whole thang. You think they wanted to read hundreds of stories then end up with their middle finger raised? Nuh-uh. 3: If you were on that shortlist, would you want to have your name out there? I don’t think so. Let’s move on, people. Il faut cultiver notre gardens innit.

Winner takes all was too much like the Weakest Link in any case, and besides, 5k would have been for PC World and the pub and a holiday; it wouldn’t have lasted five minutes and the winner would have been a target for vitriolic attacks from the snubbed also-rans and the lazy bastards who didn’t enter in the first place. The money would most likely have crushed the winner’s creativity,not least with the knowledge that his/her story wasn’t worth the equivalent of 30 life-giving fresh water wells anyway. But a mug, that would have been different. They could have raised a toast of roasted rice tea to the ignorant twats (and there would have been plenty) deriding their stories as “utter rubbish!!”, “postmodern shite!!” etc etc. a WH coffee mug will give years of drinking pleasure. Even if the stories weren’t deemed aywhere near special enough to throw 5k at they were probably still dredged up from the writers’ boots with enough struggle attached to make a nice cup of tea in a nice mug some recompense.

Set aside your rusty swords! Any struggle useless. Take your last look at this yellow world - we’re leaving for the sake of beautiful.

Will next year’s be a rollover prize?

Sandra got a warm fuzzy feeling in her tummy whenever Jeremy was around. With buttocks like that who wouldn’t?” etcetera…

Being read by ZS and potentially winning £5k makes this competition among the most prestigious in the world. $10,000 dollars is a lot of money.