The Booktrust has cancelled the John Llewellyn Rhys prize this year because it is suffering a ‘lack of funds’. £13m was cut from the Booktrust’s annual grant from the Department of Education was cut earlier in the year and the organisation has been forced into retrenchment.
Now, it is a pity that this widely respected prize will not be awarded this year. It is a favourite among the literati, many of whom owe their success to it. Margaret Drabble reveals in today’s Guardian that she would not have been introduced to the ‘London literary scene without the JLR’ and she labels it the ‘Booker without the back-stabbing’.
Contemporary literature is, believe it or not, an important industry in Britain and prizes are a useful and cheap form of publicity. The global prominence of institutions such as the Booker Prize and the Samuel Johnson Prize attest to that fact.
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