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Zadie Smith: Winning book prizes is 'everything' for up-and-coming writers

Best-selling author Zadie Smith says winning book prizes is now "everything" for new writers, as she argues they are now "essential" to getting noticed

Zadie Smith: Winning book prizes is 'everything' for up-and-coming writers
Award winning author Zadie Smith Photo: REX FEATURES

Winning books prizes is “everything” to new writers, the author Zadie Smith has said, as she argues the state of modern publishing makes awards “essential” in getting noticed.

Smith, the award-winning author of White Teeth, NW and On Beauty, said winning prestigious prizes was no long the “cherry on the top” of a career.

Instead, she argued, it is “essential” for up-and-coming writers in getting noticed and attracting readers to lesser-known works.

She has herself been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and appeared on the prestigious Granta List of the 20 best young authors twice.

Smith, 38, has now spoken of her early success, saying she hopes the notion of “celebrity” will eventually “just go away”, leaving her to concentrate on her work.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Front Row, Smith was asked about changes to the Man Booker Prize, which will see it extended to international authors including Americans next year.

The author, who was born in North London and lives in the United States, argued book prizes were now “essential” to up-and-coming writers.

“It’s tough on English writers to tell you the truth, I think,” she said. “It’s just the Americans have a lot of prizes of their own – a lot - and a lots of opportunities internationally.

“And now they have some more. British writers aren’t eligible for any American prizes, really.

“The way publishing is these days, for a lot of mid-list and a lot of starting writers the prize is everything. It’s not some kind of cherry on the top, it’s essential to getting noticed, to getting readers.

“So I think it’s a little tough.”

When asked about her own experience, which saw her receive multiple awards and critical acclaim for her debut novel White Teeth in 2000, she told the programme: “I have nothing else to compare it to. It’s a ridiculous thing to happen to anyone.

"I can’t make it go away, I don’t know why it happened, it’s completely random.

“But given that it happened, all I can do is do the best work that I can do in my room every day, or in the library.

“That’s the only way I can deal with it is to focus on the pages that I’m writing and the fact that I’m going to be writing a long time.

“There will be many more interesting young novelists – they’ll get younger and younger, I’ll get more decrepit.

“And hopefully in the end, that bit of celebrity that surrounded me when I was younger will just go away and I’ll just keep on typing.”

Smith has now published a new hardback book, The Embassy of Cambodia, which stretches to just 69 pages long.

Jon Howells, from Waterstones, said the importance of book awards, particularly the Man Booker, Costa and Bailey’s prizes, “cannot be underestimated”.

“The impact they make is incredible,” he said. “It has a massive influence even on the established writers like Hilary Mantel. Debut writers will carry it with them for the rest of their careers.

“A good review still sells a lot of books and should not be written off, but even they are not as effective as they were 20 years ago.

“You cannot underestimate the impact of an award.”

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