Dear Editor,
I take the time to reply once more to questions repeated by Rev Gideon Cecil in a letter in your newspaper on July 9 and 10, 2018.
He asks why there has been such a long delay in the announcements of the shortlist and awards for the Prize. By now Rev Cecil ought to be aware that this is because the funding has not yet been made available to complete the process.
He repeats yet again his refusal to accept that a writer is allowed to enter the Prize as contestants one year and be asked to serve as a judge in another year. He declares “no award in the world will ever allow such an act”. He is wrong. Other major awards around the world do allow it.
In previous letters I have supplied the evidence to prove that former judges are not debarred from entering and winning, and former entrants, former winners are always asked to serve as judges. I gave several examples of these from the IMPAC Dublin, the Commonwealth, the OCM Bocas. These are not my opinions – they are facts that can be verified.
There is no such clause in the eligibility rules of the Man Booker Prize, or any of those others. The rules of the IMPAC Dublin speak to persons being entrants and judges at the same time, it does not bar them from entering or from being a judge in the future. Clearly, if I am a judge in 2018, I cannot enter in 2018. But when I am not a judge in 2019, I am not barred from entering. I supplied factual evidence of this happening in that same IMPAC Dublin Prize.
Rev Cecil suggested “I believe regulations barring former judges from entering the Guyana Prize should be integrated into the award brochure.” That is a reasonable suggestion based on his opinion. But it has not been the view of the major literary prizes around the world. He also objects to writers entering the Prize and winning on repeated occasions. Those international literary prizes do not disqualify winners from entering again.
The former Whitbread Prize, now known as the Costa Book Awards, is another of the major prizes. For the Best Novel, they have had winners repeating many times – Salman Rushdie, William Trevor, Kate Atkinson, Beryl Bainbridge. Poetry has been dominated by Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy, Ted Hughes. Incidentally, Duffy and Bainbridge have served repeatedly as judges a number of times for that same Prize, as have other winners including Susan Hill, Andrew Boyle and Paul Theroux. These are among many writers who re-appear as winners and judges of the same Prize.
If Rev Cecil is still not satisfied, I can name other examples from the famous Pulitzer Prize. If this is acceptable practice around the world, why is it wrong in the Guyana Prize?
Yours faithfully
Al Creighton
