ZADIE SMITH, who has won awards for her novels White Teeth and On Beauty, has launched a stinging attack on literary prizes.
"Most literary prizes are only nominally about literature," reads a blog signed by her. "They are really about brand consolidation for beer companies, phone companies, coffee companies and even frozen food companies."
Although she does not name names, the prizes to which she is referring are clear from the types of company she mentions. The beer company must be Whitbread, which until 2006 ran the successful Whitbread book awards. Smith won its first novel prize in 2000 for White Teeth, which was then made into a Channel 4 drama series.
The phone company must be Orange. In 2006 Smith won its prize for fiction with On Beauty. It is a women-only award. The coffee company must be Costa, a division of Whitbread that sponsors a series of book awards. The overall Costa prize (there are also five category prizes) was won last month by A L Kennedy for her novel Day.
The frozen food company must be Iceland, which sponsored the Booker prize before Man, the hedge fund firm, took over.
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Smith, who wrote much of White Teeth while she was still at Cambridge University, makes her comments on the website of the Willesden Herald, a forum for the arts. Smith is the chairman of a short-story competition run on the website. Despite 850 entries, she and the other judges have decided not to award a prize this year.
No entry was good enough, Smith declared - before going on to savage more famous literary awards, such as the ones she has won, for doling out prizes for commercial imperatives.
The blog under her name declares that she is "depressed by the cookie-cutter process of contemporary publishing".
Smith, 32, could not be contacted yesterday to confirm whether the words in the blog were her own. Steve Moran, the organiser of the judges, said the contest and the judges' reports were real.
Publishing figures were swift to disagree with Smith's critique. "Her remarks are absolutely ridiculous," said Ion Trewin, organiser of the Booker.
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"Why has she been happy to accept money from these prizes and sponsors, whom she now attacks? And I'd also like to know if her publisher is going to put her forward in future for literary awards."
Joanna Trollope, who chaired last month's Costa awards, said: "Actually these prizes rescue some books which could simply end up on publishers' slush piles. So Zadie Smith, whom I think is a good writer, is very wrong. Also, in an increasingly philistine country the more that art and commerce can and do come together, the better."
Smith is adept at creating drama in real life as well as fiction. In 2000 she said that Ffion Hague, one of the Orange prize judges who had not supported White Teeth, could "kiss my behind".
On the blog, she wonders: "Maybe the problem with the Willesden Herald prize is that my name is attached to it.
"To be very clear: just because this prize has the words Willesden and Zadie hovering over it, it does not mean that I or the other judges want to read hundreds of jolly stories about multicultural life on the streets of north London."
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Smith grew up in Willesden as the daughter of a Jamaican mother and an English father. Her remarks about "jolly stories about multicultural life" could well be taken as patronising, arrogant or even racist.
The novelist explained why she and her fellow judges - there are three others - could not find a winner this year.
"I think there are few prizes of this size that would have the integrity not to award a prize . . . The little Willesden Herald prize is only about good writing . . ." the website said.
The three-person Willesden Herald panel between them read all 850 entries and then drew up a list of 20, which were sent to Smith. She and her fellow judges decided that this year they could not find "the greatness" that they were looking for and so decided not to award the £5,000 prize, which had been raised privately by Moran.
Writers could send entries either with their name attached or anonymously. One entry that came in anonymously is now revealed to have been written by Katherine Mansfield, one of the greatest short story writers of the 20th century. The judges apparently did not recognise it or its literary merit.
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Damned ... but rewarding
THE £50,000 Booker prize is the most prestigious of British literary competitions. Winning the award, now known as the Man Booker, after its current sponsor, has cemented the reputation of novelists such as Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan.
Other well-known contests include the Costa (formerly Whitbread) awards. Winners of this prize, worth £30,000, have included Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Philip Pullman.
The Orange prize for fiction honours emerging young female authors. It is worth £30,000 and its past winners include Zadie Smith.
The John Llewellyn Rhys prize is for young authors, the Dagger awards are for crime writers and the Samuel Johnson prize is for nonfiction authors.
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The most famous international award is the Nobel prize for literature, worth £765,000, which went last year to Doris Lessing. At 87, she was its oldest winner.