Thursday, January 19, 2006

Le Prince Maurice prize for love stories

Following close on the announcement of the longlist for the UK Romantic Novelists' Association book of the year award, the Guardian now brings news of another prize for love stories. (Link from booktrade.info.)

This one is named Le Prince Maurice prize, and it is intended to be awarded to a 'literary love story'. This seems to be a wonderfully flexible term which will allow for all kinds of 'controversy'. And the media, as we all know, just orgasmate over controversy.

The Grauniad says that the prize offers 'no large cash sums to the winner', and that's true. But Le Prince Maurice turns out to be a five-star resort on the island of Mauritius, and the winner receives an all-expenses-paid two-week retreat at the hotel, while all the judges and shortlisted authors are flown out to the island for the ceremony. Which sounds quite a nice little prize to me. The whole thing, it appears, is designed to generate publicity for Mauritius in general and the resort in particular.

No comments: