Hartwell said he was won over by the idea "of recognising literature of enduring value and of recognising and celebrating books that will be read in just not five years' time but 100 years' time". I've heard they're a bank, a retail chain, an online giant and even an oligarch – so who would have thought a publisher would sponsor a literary prize? I hope you're not disappointed." Toby Hartwell, managing director of the Folio Society, said: "There has been a lot of speculation about the identity of the sponsor. Kidd set the hare running 18 months ago with the idea of a literature prize and its viability has always been about finding a willing sponsor. There will be no black ties for the Folio, said Kidd. The Folio will also be less formal than the Booker, which holds a grand dinner in the Guildhall. It will first be awarded in March 2014, five months after the Booker, and its judges will come from a new academy of professionals who are "immersed in the world of books". The prize will give its winner £40,000, £10,000 less than the Booker. That said, the prize will not apologise for getting excited about books that might at first appear daunting, that go on to reward dedicated readers by reflecting the world back to them in an entirely unexpected or different way." Many, even most, great books go down easily. Kidd was among those critics of the 2011 Booker and he said the new prize was all about bringing literary gems to as wide a public as possible, adding: "Gems is not code for difficult or obscure. However, the prize's roots are firmly in the debate from 2011 when remarks by Booker judges that they were looking for books with "readability" or books that "zip along" brought a torrent of criticism. More initiatives that bring more great books to more people can only be a good thing." "All book prizes are charitable organisations that are run for the public benefit, so this notion of prizes somehow rivalling each other doesn't really make any sense. "We're a complement to all prizes," he said. The new prize will be similar in aim to the Booker in that it is looking for the year's best work of fiction written in the English language, but it will be open to works from any form or genre of fiction and writers from any country – unlike the Booker, which is just for novels and restricts itself to citizens of the Commonwealth or Ireland.Īndrew Kidd, the literary agent who came up with the idea, said it was not a battle with the Booker.
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