Women’s Literary Society Awards between 1990 and 2010

Abstract

This paper examines the awards which are given by Women's Literary Society (W.L.S.) between 1990 and 2010. The institution of children's book awards appeared in America in 1922, when American Library Association (A.L.A.) gave Newbery Medal to The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon. However, children's book prizes began to be awarded for the first time in Greece just 36 years later, in 1958, when the nonprofit organization W.L.S. announced a literary competition of writing children's books. Although that a plurality of other organizations’ prizes followed, W.L.S.’s awards are of particular interest, as they created a new path in greek children's books writing during a period in which translations had been dominating. Reviewing greek literature around the field of children's literature, becomes clear the absence of scientific studies regarding W.L.S.’s awards, apart from particular cases, which mostly focus on the historical importance and the contribution of W.L.S.’s awards. The purpose of the paper is to study the W.L.S.’s literary awards between 1990 -2010 as a cultural phenomenon. Specifically, the paper aims to present the goals and the topics of the awards. Additionally, it investigates the jury’s composition, the frequency of awarding the same authors and the winning authors’ gender. Finally, are examined the reasons underlying the awards, in order to highlight the main evaluation’s criteria.