November 9, 2014

The counter-literature prize

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The wrong books win the prizes: safe books, conventional books, books that strive for the known excellence of today rather than for the unknown excellence of a not yet known future. Books that are too much of their time, as opposed to books that leap into the pure breakthrough risk of the untimely.

We think there should be a prize for books that are different, unusual, unnerving, too political or unrealistic, not quite right. We think there should be a prize for books that are really, really good but - because they are just too different - will most likely never win any of the many literary prizes that already exist in the world.

For now, this prize is only a hypothetical entity. What might be the best way to bring it into reality? Who should the judges be? How would we even find the strange, counter-literary books in the first place?


[Unfinished.]



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