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| RICHARD FORD Poster by T.A. |
Richard Ford’s literary honour questioned by peers after history of aggressive behaviour
The Paris Review’s decision to give Ford the Hadada prize has been criticised in light of conduct that has included spitting on Colson Whitehead
Alison Flood
Tuesday 5 November 2019
The Paris Review’s decision to award its august lifetime achievement prize to Richard Ford has been criticised, with readers pointing to the American novelist’s history of poor conduct, such as when he spat in the face of fellow writer Colson Whitehead.
Ford will be presented with the Hadada prize in April by Bruce Springsteen, who once described Ford’s work as “poignant and hilarious”. Ford follows in the footsteps of previous winners including Philip Roth, Norman Mailer and Joan Didion, with the magazine saying that his “writing has been commended for its ‘linguistic mastery … rivalled by few, if any’ and for the ‘terse poetry’ he brings to his prose”.
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| ‘People make such a big deal out of it – shooting a book’ … Richard Ford. Photograph: Raul Arboleda |
The prize is given to “a distinguished member of the writing community who has made a strong and unique contribution to literature”.
But when the decision was announced on Monday, writers including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Sarah Weinman and Saeed Jones questioned the magazine’s choice. While Ford has won critical acclaim for novels including The Sportswriter and The Lay of the Land, and won the Pulitzer for his 1995 novel Independence Day, his response to negative reviews has been criticised.
In 2001, Whitehead wrote a negative review of his short story collection A Multitude of Sins, and at a party two years later Ford spat in his face. In 2017, he defended his response, writing that “as of today, I don’t feel any different about Mr Whitehead, or his review, or my response”.
Rebecca Solnit said of the exchange: “That’s not a battle; that’s just a white creep spitting on a black man like the white racists at the lunch counter sit-ins.” Whitehead later warned other negative reviewers of the book “that they might want to get a rain poncho, in case of inclement Ford”.
When Alice Hoffman wrote what Ford called “nasty things” about Independence Day, he shot a hole through her latest book and posted it to her. In a 2003 interview with the Guardian, Ford said “people make such a big deal out of it – shooting a book – it’s not like I shot her”.
Nguyen, the Pulitzer-winning Vietnamese-American writer, pointed out that the magazine “has never given this award to a writer of colour in 18 years, and only five women. They missed Toni Morrison. Living writers who could get this award: Maxine Hong Kingston, Sandra Cisneros, Edward P Jones, Louise Erdrich, Yusef Komunyakaa, to name a few,” he wrote on Twitter.
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