Fiachra Gibbons
Seamus Heaney, the Irish Nobel laureate, won the Whitbread book of the year award this week when his ancient warrior Beowulf slew the upstart young wizard Harry Potter. It is the fourth year in a row that a poet has won the 22E000 prize.
Heaney’s translation of the ancient Anglo- Saxon epic poem about a great warlord who comes to the aid of a king stopped the steamroller of hype and expectation behind JK Rowling’s phenomenonally successful children’s book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Many in literary London had suspected that the rules of the Whitbread, which up until this year barred children’s books from the main competition, had been changed for Harry Potter’s sake. But Eric Anderson, the chair of the judges, said although the book came an unofficial second it did not go to a vote.
“Beowulf was the clear winner. There was no real disagreement. This was a master poet breathing life into a great work of art which has only been known to a small number of academics. He has retrieved a buried golden treasure,” he said.
Heaney (60) dedicated the winning book to his late friend Ted Hughes, who won the prize for the past two years running. Anderson said they had no qualms about choosing another book of poetry. “There was some argument over whether a translation was the same as a collection, but that was it. This has been a remarkable period for poetry. Two colossi have bestrode this narrow world in recent years. Hughes and Heaney are the greatest poets of the 20th century after TSEliot.”
The poet and critic Tom Paulin called Heaney’s Beowulf a “timeless classic … a hymn to the deep North Sea energies and roots of the English language”. Heaney, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon, began the translation 15 years ago. He won the Whitbread in 1996 for a collection entitled The Spirit Level.
Rowling, the 2-1 joint favourite with Heaney, won the 10E000 children’s prize.
The presence of model Jerry Hall on the judging panel was condemned by rival Booker Prize organiser Martyn Goff as “blatant dumbing down”.
The other books on the Whitbread shortlist were Rose Tremain’s novel Music and Silence, White City Blue by Tim Lott and the second volume of David Cairns’s biography of Berlioz, Servitude and Greatness.
l In a story on writing and literary prizes last week, the wrong Whitbread shortlist was reproduced. The Mail & Guardian regrets the error.