Do literary awards matter?

Do literary prizes matter? 

Yes. And no. And… sort of?

Do literary prizes matter? 

No. They are silly popularity contests. There is probably politics involved. If you define importance based on prizes, following their recommendations meticulously, then you are a silly and politically pointless and popularity-obsessed person. I say this as someone who follows prizes; I say it with my own personal, ontological, existential, selfly authority.

The Akutagawa Prize is silly; the Nobel Prize for Literature is silly; the Man Booker Prize is silly. The staggering number of incredible authors who have empty ‘trophy cabinets’ shows that awards miss more often than they hit.

Yes: read ten award-winning books, simply because they won awards, and all you’ll get is a brain full of what stuffy, puffed-up judges think is good. And who cares what they think? 

To softquote Wyslawa Szymborska, we’re one time only to the marrow of our bones – so let’s simply read what we love, not what an awards list makes us feel like we should love!

Do literary prizes matter? 

Yes. Each book that wins one of these prizes does something special.

Anna Burns’s Milkman won the Man Booker Prize in 2018; there is a scene in that book that is so profoundly moving, a scene that pulls on my heart so deeply, that it feels Old Testament biblical in its raw, soul-shredding, deconstructing-and-reconstructing power. That book deserves a thousand awards.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has shown its glory forever and for all time by choosing Han Kang in 2024. The White Book is an utter jewel. (Can it be that the excellence of the winning books will validate the award in our minds – not the other way around?)

Sure, reading through a list of ten prize-winning books probably won’t lead you to your ten new favorite books – but a list of award-winning books can’t help but make it more likely you’ll find a heart-shaker. Your chances of finding gems in an award-winning list are surely higher than choosing ten books at random at the library. These judges read a lot – they know what they’re doing!

After all, you only have one life – wasn’t it Nobel Prize-winning poet Wyslawa Szymborska who said that we’re one time only, to the marrow of our bones? – so why not spend your time reading books that have an above-average chance to be incredible gems?

Plus, awards bring attention to books – bringing more readers!

Do literary prizes matter?

Sort of. We are baffled people. We are thrown into the world without understanding. If we want to understand anything, if we want to lessen our bafflement (all the while aware that to increase our understanding of any single iota is simultaneously to increase our bafflement, increasing it multidimensionally), then we must start somewhere.

We choose starting places knowing such places are flawed. Reading your way through Akutagawa or Booker prizewinners is as good a place as any to find new literary adventures in this strange world. Yes: these awards don’t find their way to every deserving writer – but, more often than not, the writers who win those awards are deserving.

Let’s remind ourselves once more of Szymborska’s words: We’re one-time-only to the marrow of our bones, and the wins and the losses, the hits and the misses, are just part of any one-time odyssey. No list can remove risk, or lack, or loss. At the same time, lists might improve the odds of finding a gem.

So (as it so often is) the answer to this question is, Yes, No, and Sorta. The answer is many answers. Read many different things; read lists of award-winning books; revere those awards; tear up those lists, reject those awards, and read comics; tape the lists back together and start again.

And when you’re done, send me a list of your favorites! 😀