The Australian literary scene is a small and cliquey one. Everyone seems to know everyone else, if not in person, then by name or reputation. Judging panels usually comprise industry professionals – writers, critics, academics, publishers. While the remit is to judge the work and solely the work, it’s difficult not to take into account the biographical details of the author. Though these factors may not sway the overall decision, it’s disingenuous not to acknowledge that a judging panel does consider multifarious elements including race, gender, politics and previous books when it comes to announcing a shortlist and winner.
As competition rules deem they have to declare any close relationships with writers who’ve submitted entries, judges who don’t come encumbered with conflicts of interests when judging their peers can be hard to find.
With this in mind, ArtsHub decided to offer up a provocation to the literary community at large. To garner a neutral and objective perspective and to mitigate accusations of insularity, parochialism and unaired biases, should international judges be considered as panel guests at major awards? The responses are nuanced, rather than a straight affirmative or negative.
A writer who wishes to remain anonymous says, ‘In a pool this small, there are always going to be challenges in terms of everyone knowing everyone. But the work should be judged on its merits, not on the person who wrote it, whether that perception is good or bad. We all do the literary festival circuit and panels together. If I had to recuse myself every time when judging work because I know the author, I would have to recuse myself every time I was asked. There are also political concerns about the reception when prizes are given to certain people. Having neutral judges who are removed from the scene here would add a sense of balance.’
Another anonymous author adds, ‘In my experience judges have been very open and ethical in declaring those conflicts of interest (when they’re friends with particular authors, or have worked closely with or for them, or been their students or teachers or editors or publishers etc), but it can sometimes mean that a judging panel is left with very few people who are actually eligible to “vote” for a particular author’s work, if that author has friends or colleagues on the panel.’
Author Lauren Foley is open to the inclusion of an outsider arbiter: ‘There is merit to having a panel of judges selected from “home” and “away” for all awards; this speaks to the subjectivity and lack of professional standardisation in the arts… There will always be personal bias, but it should be on the merit of the art, not the artist.’
Several writers mentioned that, while inviting an overseas judge to be part of a panel may seem like a good idea at first, they may struggle to understand the nation’s specific cultural and historical context. After all, the objective of our most prestigious prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, is to celebrate ‘a novel of the highest literary merit’ that presents ‘Australian life in any of its phases’. So, one could argue, could a non-Australian judge fully understand Australian life?
Lisa Tirreno points out, ‘I absolutely see why you would ask [whether there should be international judges] because, yes, [the sector is] small and that definitely risks it being unfair, since people often all know each other, but I also think that it’s only people who have lived in a culture who really can understand that culture. The Australian arts scene is unique to us. I would worry that a judge pulled in from overseas just wouldn’t get what resonates with us or, worse, may think of us as just the same as them, when we’re not. Our arts scene is unique to us.’
Moreover, can any judge truly be objective about a work, regardless of where they come from? As Jinghua Qian says, ‘I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have one international guest judge on a panel of, say, three or four, but I wouldn’t say that makes their perspective “neutral”, just different. Having judges that understand the specific cultural context is important too.
‘As an example from a different medium, RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under had US judges in Season One who fundamentally didn’t understand or make an effort to understand Australian and New Zealand humour and cultural references, which made for frustrating, groundless judgements.’
Some competitions involve sending out print books to the judges – who may be spread right across the country – making the concept of mailing hundreds of titles to a judge who resides overseas not a financially viable option.
As Judith Ridge says, ‘Having been a judge [for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards] a few times, I suspect whatever the merits of the concept, the logistics would be insurmountable. Have you seen the cost of international postage recently? And while I think the benefits could extend well beyond merely counteracting suspicions of judges allowing friendships and enmities to influence their consideration (which, as a past judge, I will choose not to be insulted by!), to be a good way of promoting Australian works internationally, I suspect the drawbacks (lack of cultural and historical knowledge and context, snobbery) would outweigh them.’
Having said that, other competitions, like the Stella Prize, can be judged digitally (via WeTransfer or similar).
Maybe an international judge could join the final shortlist arbitration, instead of having to read every submission whether in hard copy or in digital form?
Perhaps we can think laterally? Eleanor Hogan suggests, ‘I’ve often thought that countries with a comparable literary output or population base should swap judges for major literary prizes (for example, Canada and Australia) to avoid the incestuous factor, although a lack of understanding of historical/contextual issues may be a problem with some categories.’
Susan Wyndham and Jane Sullivan both believe having an international judge is an interesting idea, but only if it was a like for like swap – ‘the Miles Franklin with the Booker, for example,’ says Wyndham.
There are other concerns, pertaining to the guest judge’s home country. David Nichols is tentatively in favour of the idea, upon one condition: ‘This would work, but ideally from other “small” (not necessarily wealthy) countries; i.e. not the big hitters in the Anglosphere.’
Ana Tiwary also questions the background of the judge. ‘It depends on what international means? Just judges from the UK? Just white judges? If international truly means international, then yes,’ she says, while Qian adds, ‘I would probably be more in favour of guest judges from New Zealand, India, Singapore, Malaysia etc, rather than the US or UK.’
‘Given that judging lit prizes is done for quite low, sometimes nominal, pay, it could be hard to find suitably qualified judges,’ says Melissa Lucashenko.
Yet, despite various concerns, international judges can be successfully interwoven into the local book scene. It’s been tried and trialled elsewhere. In fact, as Lucy Sussex notes, ‘The NZ Ngaio Marsh Awards for crime [fiction] made a point of having overseas, internationally rated authors. It works well,’ while Sian Campbell mentions that, back in 2017-19, the Lifted Brow Experimental Non-Fiction Prize judging panel featured several big-name international judges among the homegrown ones.
Literary cross-pollination is not a bad idea – if we can sort out the logistics, then it could be a chance to promote Australian literature to a wider audience.
