The Perennial Problem of the Prize

Updated Oct 2026: this editorial has been rewritten and now cites its sources.

Literary prizes rest on a simple promise: a panel reads widely, deliberates in good faith and names a book worthy of readers' attention. In most years that promise holds with little comment. The years in which it breaks are more instructive, because they reveal what a prize depends on. Three episodes from the past fifteen years, at the Pulitzer, the Nobel and the Booker, show the same underlying problem from different angles. A prize draws its authority from its process, and when that process fails in public, the conversation shifts away from the books.

The Pulitzer that was not awarded

In April 2012 the Pulitzer Prize board announced no award for fiction. Its fiction jury had put forward three finalists: Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, Karen Russell's Swamplandia! and David Foster Wallace's The Pale King. According to NPR, it was the first time since 1977 that no fiction prize was given, and the administrator of the prizes said that none of the three finalists had received a majority of the board's votes.

Susan Larson, who chaired the fiction jury, told NPR that the jurors were "shocked," "angry" and "very disappointed." She added that the board's deliberations are confidential and that the board gives the jury no feedback.

That structure lies at the center of the matter. The jury reads the books. A separate board, which offers no explanation of itself, makes the final call. When the two agree, the arrangement goes unnoticed. When they do not, the public sees three finalist novels and no winner, with no account of the reasons. The outcome may have been a reasonable product of a voting rule, but without reasons given, even the jury's chair said she had no insight into the decision.

The Nobel that was postponed

The Nobel Prize in Literature faced a more serious test in 2018. On 4 May of that year the Swedish Academy announced it would postpone the 2018 prize and name the 2018 laureate alongside the 2019 laureate. The Academy said the decision was made "in view of the currently diminished Academy and the reduced public confidence in the Academy."

The statement also described what would change. The Academy said it would modernize the interpretation of its statutes, principally with regard to members' resignation; tighten its routines on conflicts of interest and on information classified as secret; and refresh its internal work arrangements and its external communication. It noted that it had declared a reserved prize seven times before, in 1915, 1919, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1936 and 1949.

The Nobel Foundation backed the postponement. Its statement explained that one circumstance that may justify an exception is "when a situation in a prize-awarding institution arises that is so serious that a prize decision will not be perceived as credible." The Foundation said the crisis had "adversely affected the Nobel Prize" and that it expected the Academy's reforms and future structure to be "characterised by greater openness towards the outside world."

The Nobel episode offers the clearest statement, from the institutions themselves, of the principle at stake. A prize decision is worth announcing only if the public believes in the process behind it. The Academy chose to delay the 2018 award rather than make one that might not be trusted.

The Booker that was divided

The third case followed a year later. In October 2019 the Booker judges named Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo as joint winners. The Guardian reported that the decision broke a rule in place since 1992 that the prize "may not be divided or withheld", and that critics objected that Evaristo, the first Black woman to win, had to share the award and half the prize money.

In this instance the problem was neither secrecy nor scandal but a departure from the prize's own published rules. Whatever the judges' reasons, the coverage turned toward the rules and away from the two novels.

What the three cases share

Considered together, the episodes point to a common pattern. In each one, attention moved from the books to the institution:

• At the Pulitzer, the board failed to give any of the jury's three finalists a majority, and offered the jury no further explanation.
• At the Nobel, the awarding body itself concluded that public confidence was too low to name a laureate.
• At the Booker, the judges set aside a long-standing rule.

None of these cases demonstrates that prizes are worthless. What they demonstrate is that the value a prize adds depends on readers trusting the process that produced the result.

Why the stakes are real

Prize attention matters to authors and readers alike. Research by Balázs Kovács and Amanda Sharkey in Administrative Science Quarterly found that award winners attracted more readers than books shortlisted for the same prizes, and that the winners' Goodreads ratings fell faster afterward, as the prize brought in readers from outside the book's natural audience. A prize, in other words, changes who reads a book. That influence is what makes the integrity of the process worth protecting.

The same principle holds further down the awards ladder. The Alliance of Independent Authors publishes ratings of awards and contests aimed at self-published writers, weighing entry fees, judging and transparency. The criteria it applies, clear rules, accountable judging and openness about how winners are chosen, echo the openness the Nobel Foundation called for in 2018.

The lesson for prize-givers

The institutions involved have, in their own words, identified what restores confidence. The Swedish Academy pointed to clearer statutes, conflict-of-interest rules and better communication. The Nobel Foundation asked for greater openness. The 2012 Pulitzer episode illustrates the cost of the opposite approach: a decision delivered without reasons, which left even its own jurors in the dark.

For prizes that want their selections to carry weight, the evidence suggests a straightforward agenda. Publish the rules and follow them. Manage conflicts of interest in plain view. When a decision is unusual, explain it. The perennial problem of the prize is not that judges sometimes disagree with readers. It is that a process the public cannot see is a process the public may stop trusting.

Readers can find Matt Haig's novel The Midnight Library on Amazon.