@@ Author rejects prize from racist British media @@
Arash
November 21, 2003
Author snubs prize in asylum row
Author Hari Kunzru (http://harikunzru.com) has rejected a Ł5000 ($8500)
literary prize, branding its newspaper sponsors anti-migrants.
Mr. Kunzru turned down the John Llewellyn Rhys award for his novel The
Impressionist, objecting to the Mail on Sunday's (www.dailymail.co.uk)
backing for the prize.
He said its "hostility towards black and Asian people" was unacceptable and
asked for the prize money to be donated to the Refugee Council charity.
Judges plan to select a new winner "as soon as possible", a spokesperson
said.
Debut novel
The John Llewellyn Rhys award is presented annually to a writer aged under
35 for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry.
The second oldest literary prize in Britain, it was established in 1942 and
has been sponsored by the Mail on Sunday for the past 15 years.
Hari Kunzru's debut novel beat four shortlisted books to the prize, but the
33-year-old did not attend the award ceremony at London's Reform Club on
Thursday.
Instead Mr. Kunzru issued a statement, read out during the event by his
agent Jonny Geller.
In it he claimed the Mail on Sunday and sister newspaper The Daily Mail
"pursue an editorial policy of vilifying and demonizing refugees and
asylum-seekers".
The statement continued: "As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware
of the poisonous effect of the Mail's editorial line.
"The atmosphere of prejudice it fosters translates into violence, and I have
no wish to profit from it."
He added that The Impressionist was "a novel about the absurdity of a world
in which race is the main determinant of a person's identity".
New winner
Mr. Kunzru has already won the Betty Trask and Somerset Maugham awards, and
was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book and Whitbread prizes.
The Mail on Sunday declined to comment but confirmed it would give the prize
money to the Refugee Council in accordance with Mr. Kunzru's wishes.
Judges will reconvene to reconsider the shortlist with a view to announcing
an alternative winner, with a second Ł5000 ($8500) prize.
The books that remain on the shortlist are Thursday's Child by Sonya
Hartnett, A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper, Virgins of Venice by
Mary Laven and Cartography by Kamila Shamsie.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3226946.stm