  Pssst... From this week's urlLink Private Eye : "No current British writer worries about his or her inferiority to Yankee competition for the simple reason that the American novel has been more or less washed up since the early 1990s - old stagers such as Roth ( American Pastoral notwithstanding) and Mailer (and Mr U[pdike] himself, I fear) sunk in torpor, newcomers like the Dave Eggers-fathered McSweeney's crowd more interested in back-slapping group promotion... Does anyone seriously think that Zadie Smith would have gone quite as far had she not looked like a cadet member of the Pointer Sisters?
As Yasmin Alibai-Brown suggested, how would Brick Lane have fared in the bestseller charts had its author worn a burkah and chaired the Shoreditch Islamic Sisters Against The Great Satan Bush Coalition? " And in today's urlLink Evening Standard : "Zadie makes peace AT LAST a reconciliation between Zadie Smith and the Orange Prize. When her first novel White Teeth was nominated four years ago, the temperamental author invited William Hague's wife Ffion, one of the judges, to "kiss my behind".
She hadn't been back since but this year peace has finally broken out. Zadie sidled into last night's party with her fiance Nick Laird and the two stayed late into the evening. "I'm not sure she was actually invited this year," mused one of the PR team at the marquee on the South Bank. Meanwhile unkind wags at the party suggested that Zadie, dressed in a trademark frock accompanied by a Latino-esque flower in her hair had serious competition for the best dressed party-goer from transvestite Turner Prize-winning potter Grayson Perry, who wore one of his famous doll's dresses.
The 30,000 Orange Prize was won by Andrea Levy for her novel Small Island . " Literary rivals "WELCOME TO the finest literary awards ceremony of the evening," quipped Mark Le Fanu introducing the Society of Authors annual awards. "I believe there's another ceremony going on tonight, but we don't talk about that. " Hackles were raised after the Orange Prize scheduled its own awards to coincide with the SOA event. "I hear they are bribing celebrities to attend," sniffed Lady Antonia Fraser, referring to Orange.
"I did not have to be bribed, thankfully. " Other guests included Lynne Truss, David Lodge and Margaret Drabble.
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