Dear Reader,

A few days ago, I received a text message from my student Anisa.

“It’s great that Heart Lamp has won a big literary prize. But now I have a problem. It’s one more book everybody is talking about, one more book I feel compelled to read. Every month there seems to be a new literary prize in the news - the Booker prize, the International Booker, the Pulitzer, the Woman’s prize, the Nobel Prize. Then there’s the JCB prize, the Crossword prize - the list of prizes is as long as Hanuman’s tail!

Honestly, I am confused. There is all this talk of how we shouldn’t just be swayed by prizes. And then when a book wins a prize, everyone lines up to read it.

A few years ago, I picked up a book that had won this same prize. It was so slow, and hard to understand. Nothing happened - maybe it was too ‘arty’ for me. I stopped after 40 pages but I felt like a loser giving up, I felt there was something wrong with me that I didn’t ‘get’ the book that a distinguished jury had given the prize to.

And then there are so many prizewinning books that are emotionally triggering, like Shuggie Bain or Prophet’s Song - reading them feels depressing. What........

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