Graphic by Vivian McPherson ’23
BY BEATA GARRETT ’20
On Monday, Nov. 4, The Paris Review announced Richard Ford as the recipient of the 2020 Hadada Award. Their website describes the Hadada as an award given to “a distinguished member of the writing community who has made a strong and unique contribution to literature.” Previous recipients include Lydia Davis, Joan Didion and Philip Roth. This April, Bruce Springsteen will present the award.
The Paris Review has since been criticized for selecting Ford. Authors like Roxane Gay, Saeed Jones and Viet Thanh Nguyen pointed out Ford’s history of racism and misogyny.
Gay tweeted, “Is this award for his ability to spit on Colson Whitehead or when he sent Alice Hoffman her book with bullet holes in it or is it for some other achievement?”
Her tweet references a party in 2003, where Ford allegedly spat on Whitehead for writing a negative review of his short story collection, “A Multitude of Sins.” In 2017, Ford confirmed that, “as of today, I don’t feel any different about Mr. Whitehead, or his review or my response,” in a feature for Esquire.
Gay’s tweet also mentioned an incident involving author Alice Hoffman. Hoffman criticized Ford’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Independence Day” in a review for The New York Times. In response, Ford’s wife shot a bullet through Hoffman’s latest book and he mailed it to her.
In a 2003 interview with The Guardian, Ford said, “But people make such a big deal out of it — shooting a book — it’s not like I shot her.”
Many have accused Ford of racism following his assault against Whitehead, an African-American man.
Ford reflected on his history of using racial slurs against black people and concluded, “My own outsize shock at finding my racist remarks was, I now think, less a result of confronting that I might be a racist, and more a measure of fear ... at being turned into a man whose worth and character were judged only by race, a man seen only incompletely, no longer free to be however good I might be.”
Nguyen pointed out on Twitter that The Paris Review “has never given this award to a writer of color in 18 years, and only 5 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.”
Mount Holyoke students seem to agree with Nguyen. “It seems like a poor choice on the part of The Paris Review. I think there are more deserving people for the award,” Saba Fiazuddin ’21 said. “There are more deserving writers of color, whose work has routinely been overlooked by the Hadada Prize. Additionally, there are better, more accomplished writers out there who haven’t engaged in such racist and misogynistic encounters.”