This week’s announcement that the UK’s premier prize for books by women was diversifying into nonfiction makes good sense for an award whose primary mission is to win them more readers. Men, as is repeatedly shown, don’t generally read novels at all, let alone ones written by women. Just think how many more of this elusive 50% would flock to it, the thinking goes, if it included works about, say, nature, politics and history.
In order for the new award to go ahead this year, £200,000 in sponsorship needs to be found before the end of May by the organisation currently known as the Women’s prize for fiction. Though it has never been averse to a name change, having previously been known as both the Orange and the Baileys prize, before settling for its current title in 2017, it is not dangling the enticement of a headline sponsorship this time round. Instead it is inviting donors to join a “family of sponsors”, which includes Baileys and Amazon’s audiobooks subsidiary, Audible.
