B,C,D

Abstract

A major literary prize will never endorse, much less disclose, the contemporary countertext. A countertext is a work, in whatever medium, that calls the literary to account and, in doing so, suggests new possible futures for the literary now. Literary prizes are too far embedded within the slow-moving, institutionalised culture of ‘literature’, their focus being on literary legacy and the essentially conservative task of selecting and confirming work that may have a weighty claim to canonicity. Their concern is not contemporary literature’s new frontiers.