Word and image in contemporary fiction

Abstract

Chris Ware's charmingly heavy-hearted graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid in the World, won the Guardian First Book Award in 2001; a controversial decision that apparently divided the judges. Formally known as the Guardian Fiction Award, other winners include now-familiar names such as Phillip Gourevirch (1999), Zadie Smith (2000) and Jonathan Safran Foer (2005). Does a graphic novel, a 'comic book that needs a bookmark', qualify as a work of literature? Guardian literary editor and judging panel chair Claire Armitstead maintains: Jimmy Corrigan is a fantastic winner, because it so clearly shows wha the Guardian award is about -it is about originaliry and energy and star quality, both in imagination and in execution. Chris Ware has produced a book as beautiful as any published this year, but also one which challenges us to think again about what literature is and where it is going. (Gibbons 2001)