To Pre-empt Posterity

In Prospect, Tom Chatfield examines literature’s prize culture.

At a lean time for everyone in the print industry, it doesn’t do to bite one of the few hands that’s left feeding you. But the increasingly interchangeable (and arbitrary) feel of each literary event in the calendar cannot serve the long-term interests of a trade that ultimately relies on fresh talent, readers and ideas for its survival.

It’s a troubling, self-destructive trend—and one that may yet see shopping for serious literature driven entirely online.