Andrea Levy’s Small Island won the Orange Prize for Fiction, given annually to a work of fiction written by a woman, in 2004, and last night it was honored again as the “Orange of Oranges,” the best of the ten books that have been given the prize since it was founded in 1995. Among the writers Levy (left) beat out for the honor: Anne Michaels, Carol Shields, Ann Patchett, and this year’s winner, Lionel Shriver (right). Which is as good an excuse as any to drag out the photo that Shriver described as “efficiently convert[ing] triumph to humiliation overnight,” because if nothing else, Levy seems to have learned from Shriver’s hard-won wisdom: “As a friend advised belatedly–girls, take heed!–before a camera, never touch anything with your mouth.”
(I could also observe that the Orange Prize is black, and the Orange of Oranges is white, but really that just makes my head hurt.)
photos: Shriver by PA, Levy by AP