How literary prizes can twist the plot for writers

Prizes have biases and limitations

Literary prizes often face criticism for their biases and limitations as they seek to recognise outstanding achievements in writing.

Some prizes in the Arabic language, have been accused of favouring works that avoid controversial issues or conform to certain norms, in what amounts to a form of moral and political bias.

Questions have been raised about freedom of expression and creativity, with limits on both relating to the expectations implied by consideration for awards as much as any restrictions applied by them.

As Nizar Qabbani once asked in his renowned Damascene Poem, "How can we write, while our mouths are locked?" This verse summarises the most important question: should writers restrict their creativity to earn a literary award?

If they do, how can a writer truly unleash their imagination and ideas? The pressure to win a prize or meet certain criteria may affect the quality and originality of their work and create a dilemma between artistic integrity and public recognition.

This may turn some authors into victims of their past success, unable to explore new paths or experiences.

Read more: Arabic Booker Prize longlist reflects diversity of themes and styles

Brazilian writer Adriana Lisboa is wary, but for different reasons.

The 2003 recipient of the José Saramago Prize for Literature thinks there is no ultimate goal in art, but that it is a continuous process of self-discovery and expression. Chasing awards, she says, can become a distraction from what makes a better focus for artists: their own growth and development.

"Sometimes," she explains, "it's about meeting your own expectations and those of the audience and critics afterwards. However, eventually, we learn to snub it, ideally, when we mature as artists and writers.

"An artist is never 'ready', there is no finish line, so we have to go on with our work and find new paths and new experiences. Otherwise, we just become caricatures of ourselves, trying to imitate a book or a certain artwork of ours has been praised in the past."

Alongside Arabic language literary prizes, including the Naguib Mahfouz Award, other garlands have faced criticism for a lack of scope, including the José Saramago Award for its limit to works written in Portuguese. A wider and more inclusive approach may enhance such prizes in terms of both their value and relevance.

Doubts about whether awards may pose a threat to creative freedom also channel concerns about what is acceptable and what is not. They raise questions about whether writers may change the shape or nature of their work to chase a prize.

Pressure can be the bitter price of any sweet victory

Iraqi Ghaid al Gharb won the 2021 Katara for her novel Sukrat: Psalms of Blood.

As a writer who plans every piece of her work, she says "I do not leave it up to coincidences," adding: "Certainly, the plot goes off-rail every now and then to extracts scenes from the worlds in my memory." 

She believes that after winning the award, the writing process becomes complicated, and the writer is under pressure to produce a better novel.

Trying as much as possible to stick to her plans, al Gharb says that during the writing process, she may propose several endings and choose the one that she sees far from the reader's expectations, "for I am a reader before being a writer."

She has sympathy for authors who have struggled after becoming acclaimed.

"I started a new novel project even before winning the prize. I wrote 30,000 words, but unfortunately, the novel was lost in the computer labyrinths, and I could not find it," she explains.

"However, I found an opportunity to rebuild the novel and write it carefully. Until now, I have not completed ten thousand words, and the novel is still in its infancy."

"Winning tastes delicious and sweet, but bitterness soon becomes apparent in the future writer's project. Therefore, I know many writers who have refrained from participating in awards for fear of winning restricting their freedom of creativity," she says.

Serious writing

Egyptian writer Wajdi al-Koumi won the 2016 Arab Thought Foundation's Arab Creativity Prize for his novel, Rhythm. He believes that taking the writing process seriously is key to continued success.

Seriousness here has many meanings, including the writer's interest in what he produces, whether the features of his literary project are enhanced with every piece he adds to it, and how he is breaking new ground via taking on fresh research, developing style or moving into new areas.

According to al-Koumi, literary prizes should "always remain accidental" to the author, and whatever the outcome, should not impose a major qualitative change on the writer's project.

"Some say that fame changes a person, but from the beginning I chose the word 'seriousness' to describe a certain type of writer," he says.  Acclaim, for him, should not change a writer's perspective.

Al-Koumi was one of the last writers to win the Arab Creativity Prize before it was suspended in 2018, when the organisers pledged to improve it. So far, it has yet to return.

And so it seems appropriate that al-Koumi  believes that literary awards should be "accidental". As he puts it: "Of course, there are trends in writing, but these should not affect [the author's] writing style nor his goals from the beginning."