Philip Pullman writes on his website: Carnegie of Carnegies
This award, which was voted for by the public, was announced on Thursday 21 June. It came as a great surprise and a great delight to me. People from several countries voted for `Northern Lights`, and it came top out of a shortlist of ten very good novels that have won the Carnegie Medal during that award`s 70-year lifetime. It was a great pity that I couldn`t be in London for the event and the announcement. I did write a few words to be read out on my behalf, but I had to write them in a hurry, and perhaps I wasn`t as clear as I like to be.
Work on the film of `The Golden Compass` continues, but meanwhile there`s another film being prepared from a novel of mine, and that`s the production of `The Butterfly Tattoo`. This is a very different thing in many ways - a different scale altogether, a realistic story rather than a fantasy, and so on. It shows a side of Oxford that `His Dark Materials` doesn`t. I like the script very much (the writer is Stephen Potts), and I met the production company recently and was very taken with their enthusiasm and evident talent. You can read about what they`re planning at www.thebutterflytattoo.co.uk.
It`s about time I put another message here. So here goes.
Carnegie of Carnegies
This award, which was voted for by the public, was announced on Thursday 21 June. It came as a great surprise and a great delight to me. People from several countries voted for `Northern Lights`, and it came top out of a shortlist of ten very good novels that have won the Carnegie Medal during that award`s 70-year lifetime.
It was a great pity that I couldn`t be in London for the event and the announcement. I did write a few words to be read out on my behalf, but I had to write them in a hurry, and perhaps I wasn`t as clear as I like to be. This is a slightly clarified version, and closer to what I wanted to say:
'First of all, I must apologise that a very long-standing commitment means that I`m in Dundee this evening rather than in London. But mainly I want to thank everyone who voted for `Northern Lights`, and to thank the librarians who gave the book the Carnegie Medal in the first place back in 1996. That award was without question the most important honour I had ever received, and the one I treasure the most, because it was the one that first made `Northern Lights` visible to a wider public.
This new accolade is of course an enormous pleasure to receive, but when we look at the quality of all the books that have won the Carnegie Medal throughout its seventy years, it`s enough of an honour to appear in a list beside such people as Peter Dickinson, Jan Mark, Penelope Lively, Margaret Mahy, Leon Garfield, Rosemary Sutcliff, Walter de la Mare, and Arthur Ransome, never mind the names on the shortlist, without expecting to be known as the favourite of the lot. Speaking for myself, I might tentatively suggest that the voters got the author`s initials right, but that if a contest like this is run again in a hundred years` time, the other PP [Philippa Pearce] will come out on top. But then who knows what superb books will win the Carnegie Medal in the future? All we do know is that the librarians will continue to choose well and to celebrate the best of writing for children and young people. Thank you once again - I am humbled and honoured that `Northern Lights` has been chosen as the favourite from among so many wonderful books.'
What I really wanted to say was that I cherish all my awards equally. Other prizes since the Carnegie Medal in 1996, most especially the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, have been enormously valuable and important to me, and I thank everyone who has been involved in honouring my work.
I was in Dundee to receive an honorary degree, which was a very happy occasion. The poet Carol Ann Duffy was getting an honorary degree at the same ceremony, and I was very glad to meet her, because I`ve admired her work for a long time. I didn`t see much of Dundee because it was covered with mist, but I did like the seven-foot high statue of Desperate Dan in the main square. If I`d had my camera with me I`d put a picture of it here.
Work on the film of `The Golden Compass` continues, but meanwhile there`s another film being prepared from a novel of mine, and that`s the production of `The Butterfly Tattoo`. This is a very different thing in many ways - a different scale altogether, a realistic story rather than a fantasy, and so on. It shows a side of Oxford that `His Dark Materials` doesn`t. I like the script very much (the writer is Stephen Potts), and I met the production company recently and was very taken with their enthusiasm and evident talent. You can read about what they`re planning at www.thebutterflytattoo.co.uk.
And the weather at the moment is not unbearably hot. So far so good.
Philip Pullman
1 comments - Add yours
#1
wish he spoke a bit more about the TGC movie…
# June 28, 2007 15:43 by Ardanawen