Writing is not basketball or, better yet, a one-on-one sport like tennis. People like to invoke decorations as though they're ironclad. But winning a prize for one's writing is not an objective measure of anything. Winning prizes is also political.
Some of the best writers of the past 100 years have never won any number of the most coveted prizes.
James Baldwin never won a National Book Award, Pulitzer or MacArthur.
You could even say that winning prizes is the flip-side of cancellation.
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