Wikipedia

Saga Prize

The Saga Prize was a literary award for new Black British novelists, which ran from 1995 to 1998.

History

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The actress and writer Marsha Hunt established the Saga Prize in 1995 to recognise the literature emerging from 'indigenous black Britons' experiences.[1] The prize – of £3,000 and a book contract – was for unpublished first novels. To be eligible, entrants needed a black African ancestor and to have been born in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland. The prize was sponsored by the travel firm Saga plc.[2] Judges included Andrea Levy and Margaret Busby.[3]

The "afrocentric" nature of the Saga Prize and its restrictive definition of blackness caused controversy.[2] The Commission for Racial Equality objected to its creation,[4] and the Society of Authors refused to support it.[5][6]

The prize ran for four years and closed in 1998 [7]

Winners and further literary careers

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1995: Diran Adebayo, Some Kind of Black[8]

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Some Kind of Black (1997) centred on the youthful adventures of its British-born Nigerian protagonist, Dele, in London. The book also won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain's New Writer of the Year Award, the Author's Club First Novel Award, and a Betty Trask Award. It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize.Adebayo wrote one further novel and became a Creative Writing Lecturer. Some Kind of Black is now a Virago Modern Classic and was adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 2022.

* 1996: Joanna Traynor, Sister Josephine[9]

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Traynor described her novel as "a semi-autobiographical account of a foster child on a white northern working class council estate and her experience of hospital life as a nurse in Liverpool."[10] In 2008 Traynor won a Churchill fellowship to research the impact of slavery.[11] Traynor wrote two further novels, Divine, [12] 1999 ,and Bitch Money 2000 [13] both published by Bloomsbury.

1997: Judith Bryan, Bernard and the Cloth Monkey[14]

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Bernard and the Cloth Monkey is a portrayal of family guilt. Bryan became a Creative Writing Lecturer at Roehampton University and wrote for theatre. Her play A Cold Snap was placed second in the 2008 Alfred Fagon Award,[15] and was subsequently produced in 2011 as Keeping Mum, at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre as part of Write Now 2.[16] Bernard and the Cloth Monkey was republished in 2022 as part of a collection of rediscovered works celebrating Black Britain curated by Bernardine Evaristo.

* 1998: Ike Eze-Anyika, Canteen Culture

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Following this book about the police force,[17] Eze-Anyika did not publish any further works

References

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  1. ^ Marsha Hunt (8 August 1995). "Saga that led to a miracle". The Herald.
  2. ^ a b Mark Stein (2002). "Saga Prize". In Alison Donnell (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. Routledge. p. 270. ISBN 978-1-134-70025-7.
  3. ^ Margaret Busby, "Andrea Levy remembered", Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  4. ^ Deirdre Osborne (2009). "Introduction: Longevity and Critical Legitimacy: The 'So-called' Literary Tradition Versus the 'Actual' Cultural Network". Women: A Cultural Review. 20 (3: Contemporary Black British Women's Writing): 239. doi:10.1080/09574040903285685. S2CID 219608713.
  5. ^ Tracy J. Prince (2012). Culture Wars in British Literature: Multiculturalism and National Identity. McFarland. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-7864-6294-0.
  6. ^ Mark Stein, Black British Literature: Novels of Transformation, Ohio State University Press, 2004, p. 15.
  7. ^ Cole Moreton (4 January 1998). "Books: Some kind of success | As the Saga Prize folds, Cole Moreton asks: has it really got easier for black writers?". The Independent.
  8. ^ Adebayo, Diran (2009). Some kind of black (Repr ed.). London: Abacus. ISBN 978-0349108728.
  9. ^ Traynor, Joanna (1998). Sister Josephine. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-3511-9. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  10. ^ "The life of a prize-winning author has its ups and downs", PR Newswire, 23 October 1996.
  11. ^ "Exeter 2015 workshop papers | Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  12. ^ Traynor, Joanna (1 July 1999). Divine: A Novel (Bloomsbury Paperbacks). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. OL 7961816M. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  13. ^ Traynor, Joanna (2000). Bitch Money. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-4792-1. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  14. ^ Bryan, Judith; Evaristo, Bernardine (2021). Bernard and the cloth monkey. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0241482681.
  15. ^ "Alfred Fagon Award Archive - Page 2 of 3". Alfred Fagon Award. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  16. ^ "Keeping Mum by Judith Bryan". Jack Studio Theatre.
  17. ^ Jaggi, Maya (15 March 2000). "Why I had to leave the police". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
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