The Orange Prize for Fiction is one of the most respected, most celebrated and most successful literary awards in the world. Celebrating the very best of women's international fiction, even appearing on the shortlist significantly boosts a novel's sales and ensures an author will be promoted in bookshops and libraries the world over.
It was in January 1992 that a group of journalists, reviewers, agents, publishers, librarians, booksellers, male and female, gathered together in flat in London, to drink, to talk about reading and publishing, reviewing and prize giving, floating the idea of setting up a new kind of literary prize: a prize that would celebrate women's writing from all over the world, one that would put readers centre stage, one that would have a programme of educational, literacy and research initiatives associated with it, one that would be fun!
The men and women at that first meeting expressed concern that, despite the ratio of books by men published to books by women, the leading literary Prizes often seemed to overlook accomplished, challenging, important fiction by female authors. Did it matter? Yes, since Prizes are one influential way of bringing outstanding writers to the attention of readers, we decided it did matter. If nothing else, it was likely that potential readers simply didn’t get to hear about fantastic novels, from all over the world, they might enjoy.
After several hard months of negotiation and research into how a new prize might work, the Founding Women's Committee started to draw up a few guidelines and think about the tricky issue of money. Of the original committee, four women are still involved: me, literary agent Jane Gregory, publisher Susan Sandon and Project Director Harriet Hastings. We were on our way...
We approached Orange in Autumn 1995, having secured endowment of the Prize money itself from a private donor. A bronze figurine, known as 'The Bessie', is presented to each year's winner in recognition of the generosity of the anonymous benefactor. Orange, who was just dipping their toes in the water of arts sponsorship, were attracted both by the educational and lifelong learning initiatives and by the opportunity to celebrate international fiction by women. Over a matter of weeks that Christmas, arrangements were made and the Orange Prize was launched at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in January 1996. After five months of hectic hard work, publicity, marketing strategies, public readings, judging meetings — not to mention a fair amount of controversy — the first Orange Prize for Fiction was won by Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter. As they say, the rest is history...
We've never looked back. It is now the longest continuous arts sponsorship in the UK, is known as a benchmark for quality and innovation throughout the world, and Orange has won every UK major sponsorship award in recognition of their enormous and significant commitment to reading, literature and literature. So here's to the next sixteen years of promoting outstanding women's writing and put fabulous novels into the hands of readers all over the world.
Novelist and playwright Kate Mosse, Co-Founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction.