Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Doris Lessing attacks harmful promotion

Doris LessingNobel laureate Doris Lessing has attacked what she calls the 'harmful' promotion of young authors. She believes that 'Literature festivals and the aggressive marketing of celebrity authors have created a damaging climate for new writing ...' and that she felt desperately sorry for them.

Lessing is quoted, "Now what happens is that if you are a girl who's good-looking and has written even a passable book you can be earning enormous sums of money very quickly and are then sent on a promotional tour ..."

Yes, and some people say good looks are also useful for winning prizes.

She continues, "The writer has become more and more a personality. Literary festivals are enormously enjoyable but when you go into one it's got nothing to do with your writing ... We all know that writing comes out of a man or a woman sitting alone in a room with the telephone off the hook, a cup of coffee and in the good old days, a cigarette."

Times Online

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