Bloomsbury Academic Politics of Literary Prestige, The: Prizes and Spanish American Literature

Taking into account national and international politics and networks of prestige, The Politics of Literary Prestige analyses the relationship between literary prizes, politics and the reception of literature from Spanish America. Covering state-sponsored and publisher-run prizes and major awards such as the Biblioteca Breve Prize – credited with launching the ‘boom’ that marked worldwide interest in Spanish American literature in the late 1950s and 1960s – the Premio Cervantes, and the Nobel Prize, this book examines how prizes have shaped what we know about Spanish American literature. It untangles the inner workings of literary prizes in Spanish-speaking contexts, proposes the existence of a prizes network, and demonstrates that attitudes to cultural prizes are not universal but are culturally determined. Through specific examples, Sarah E.L. Bowskill introduces the different functions prizes serve at a national level and on the world stage. She draws attention to states that have tried to use prizes for political purposes and sheds light on how non-state-run prizes and their winners balance cultural and political agendas in an attempt to promote women’s and indigenous rights. This book draws on a range of sources – including speeches and interviews by winning authors, judges' statements, documents that establish the prizes, their rules and regulations, and newspaper reports about prize-giving ceremonies, as well as textual analysis of the literature – to reveal the roles prizes have played in Spanish American politics as well as in the formation of the Spanish American cultural field. Review An indictment of some eight decades of literary history, Bowskill’s solidly researched book begins by tracing a shift in literary prizes for Spanish-language texts. Starting in the 1940s writers received literary awards, sometimes sponsored by the state itself, for the quality of their work and for their reputation as political authorities. By the end of the 20th century a new type of prized author began to emerge as an allegedly independent and global celebrity on display for photos and tours, sometimes in absence of discussion of the award-winning text. This second brand of recognition favors profit-driven private funding, thanks to publisher-sponsored awards. The question of whether literature has taken a turn for the worse under this change finds a sly answer in chapter 6, which documents the devastating inequity of both sorts of literary prizes. Table after table of data supports Bowskill’s ‘conservative’ estimate: "three quarters of all literary prizes go to male authors". The Politics of Literary Prestige examine a rigged game beyond the usual accusation of merely contemporary decline. --Emily Hind, Professor of Spanish, University of Florida, and author of Dude Lit: Mexican Men Writing and Performing Competence, 1955-2012 (2019)The Politics of Literary Prestige is a valuable addition to and expansion of the ground-breaking work of the likes of Mario Santana, Deborah Cohn and Diana Sorensen on the Lain American Boom and the social, political and cultural networks that supported and promoted it. Using a remarkable range of sources, Bowskill covers the Boom authoritatively, but also revealingly unveils the missing women writers of the Boom, and offers new perspectives on developments with regard to gender and indigenous identity, as well as surveying the most recent directions in the literary prize circuit and the alternatives to it. She also penetratingly discusses literature about literary prizes. This is an important book which is hugely informative and insightful, but which also makes visible the politics of literary prestige and nuances the social role of the author beyond that of public intellectual. It is indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to understand Spanish American literature in the context of its national and global processes of production and consumption. --Philip Swanson, H