The future's bright as Zadie Smith wins a book prize at last

By Jack Malvern, Arts Reporter
From Times Online

SOME critics praised her “nuanced dialogue” while other mocked her “ramshackle” plot — and now Zadie Smith has split the judges for one of Britain’s most prestigious literary prizes.

The Orange Prize panel were still arguing the merits of On Beauty, her third novel, into the small hours yesterday after the five judges reached an impasse. Martha Kearney, political editor of Newsnight and chairwoman of the judges, was forced to take a majority vote for the £30,000 prize.

It is the first time that Smith has won an important literary prize after six years of watching others edge her out, but at least one judge remained passionately opposed to her throughout the discussions. Ms Kearney would not reveal the dissenter’s identity, but said that she had to use her casting vote.

“Not everybody was happy with it,” she said. “As a chair you can try to find a compromise book that you can get past everybody or you can choose the book that people feel passionate about. It was a very long judging session and there were passionate arguments towards the end, but there was no moment when one judge threw a glass of wine over another.”

Claire Fox, director of the Institute for Ideas and a member of the panel, declined to say whether she was happy with the decision: “It was a very strong shortlist. You’re always going to have a debate when the quality is that high.”

The other judges were Jenny Eclair, India Knight and Jacqueline Wilson.

On Beauty takes its title from one of Smith’s husband’s poems and is an homage to E.M. Forster’s Howards End. It tells the story of Howard Belsey, an Englishman teaching in a college town in New England. Belsey, a married man, struggles to keep his family together after a disastrous affair with a colleague. His son begins working for a rival academic, Monty Kipps, drawing the Belsey and Kipps families into each others’ lives.

Smith shot to fame in 1997 when Penguin paid £250,000 for a draft of her first novel, White Teeth. It was a bestseller in 2000, but was sidelined by judges for the Booker, Whitbread and Orange prizes.

Her second novel, The Autograph Man, suffered a similar fate. On Beauty was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Smith beat five other authors in the women-only prize yesterday, including Ali Smith, whose book The Accidental recently won the Whitbread Novel Award.

The only first-time novelist shortlisted was Carrie Tiffany for Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living.

Nicole Krauss, an American, was nominated for her second novel The History of Love and Sarah Waters was shortlisted for her wartime novel, The Night Watch. Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black was the other novel on the list.