02 Jul 2011 20:31:04
The suspension of the UK's second oldest literary award due to lack of funding has been met with dismay by authors from William Boyd to Margaret Drabble, who said the John Llewellyn Rhys prize had helped them to their literary achievements.
The award was founded in 1942 by the young wife of the author and RAF pilot John Llewellyn Rhys, who was killed in action during the second world war. Worth £5,000, it goes to the best work of literature – encompassing fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama – by a writer under 35, and has a reputation for ferreting out big names of the future, from Boyd, who won in 1982, to Jeanette Winterson, who won in 1987, and Drabble, who won in 1966. VS Naipaul, Angela Carter and Melvyn Bragg have also won the prize.
On Tuesday its administrator Booktrust, which earlier this year was at the centre of controversy after it revealed that the government was to cut a £13m annual grant for free books for children , said that the prize was being suspended this year after a "particularly challenging" few months.
"Our new funding settlement with the Department for Education has allowed us to protect the universal offer of our national book-gifting programmes, but it has nonetheless forced us to undertake a thorough review of all of the projects in the Booktrust portfolio," said the book charity in a statement. "As a result of this review, we have taken the difficult decision not to run the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in autumn 2011 ... The prize was initiated in 1946 and Booktrust has funded it since 2002, so we have not taken this decision lightly."
The news was greeted with dismay by former winners of the prize. Drabble, writing for the Guardian, said that "its disappearance would be a great loss to hopeful authors and the literary world", while Kennedy, who won the Costa book of the year award for her novel Day, said that her 1991 win of the John Llewellyn Rhys had played a big part in her future career.
"Without the JLR, I would not have been introduced to the London scene, I probably wouldn't be working with my current editor – I first met him at the award ceremony and we discussed my second book – and I might not be published, even now," said Kennedy, who won the prize 20 years ago for Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains. "The JLR was particularly key because it recognises short stories as well as novels – I, in fact, won the prize with a collection of short stories. Small prizes with sensible press profiles play a huge part in supporting literary fiction - and it needs all the support it can get."
