LITERARY prizes, however contentiously decided, often vindicate novels which have fared poorly in reviews and/or sales. Joanna Traynor is a new novelist who by winning the Saga Prize has achieved a rare feat. Her novel, Sister Josephine, has not yet been published. In fact, it has not even received its final editing. Submitted in manuscript form, it won the prize open to all unpublished novels by either British or Irish born entrants of African ancestry, and will now be published by Bloomsbury next summer.
Far more valuable than its £3,000 prize money, the award assures publication. Writer and actress Marsha Hunt founded the award in 1994. First won by Diran Adebayo for his novel, Some Kind of Black, which was published last year by Virago, it also marked the first time that press published a book written by a man. For Traynor the success of her book marks the end of an unsettling episode and the beginning of a far more interesting one.
About nine months ago her life had reached stalemate. Having finally decided to bring an harassment case, which she won in an out of court settlement, she had left her job realising promotion was never going to happen. It was disappointing; the job was supposed to be a major step in the computer sales career she had built up on a hunch. Instead it turned into humiliation. She does not like talking about it now.
Six months before she arrived in court, she had attended the office party which had been organised as an away event in a smart Derbyshire hotel, "more like a sales conference". At the party the chief executive quickly established his intention of turning the function into an ongoing series of sexual humiliations for the staff, complete with blow up sex dolls and a chocolate penis. Later, complaining to management in writing, Traynor found herself professionally isolated. For almost six months, she tolerated it, "the job had meant a lot to me".
Nursing had initially seemed to be her future on leaving school. But soon after qualifying, "I realised it wasn't for me". She then took a degree in psychology at Plymouth Polytechnic, before moving to London and taking a clerical job at the Guardian where she worked for two years in telesales. Traynor is a determined, shrewd woman, with an impassive, knowing face and a strong sense of social justice. Her life has been far harder than she is prepared to admit.
Born in London of a Nigerian father whom she never met and a British born mother, herself the daughter of Irish emigrants, Traynor was raised by two sets of foster parents and educated in the north of England. Brushing aside any expression of sympathy, she voices no opinion either way about her childhood. Although friendly she is wary about interviews.
Sister Josephine is semi autobiographical and written in a lively, north of England vernacular, it tells the story of a young black nurse and her daily experiences of hospital life, interspersed with flashbacks to the emotional and sexual abuse she suffered while a child raised by white foster parents. As she says herself: "You have to read the book, I don't mean that as an order." Nor is it said as one; aware that I have not been allowed to read the manuscript, Traynor feels uncomfortable about discussing her unpublished - and therefore unread novel.
Within a few months of resigning from her job with Servo Computers, she began working as information manager at the University of Plymouth. "I was in the library one day and I saw the entry form for the Saga prize." Facing a deadline of less than eight weeks, she began getting up at 4.30 a.m., intent on shaping a novel out of "the bits and pieces of writing" she had on her computer. Previously having won a runner up prize in a short story competition, Traynor had come to a gradual interest in writing fiction.
Living in a Devon village with her boyfriend and their two dogs, Joanna Traynor's life appears quite settled with her job at the university and her developing literary career. The ever practical Marsha Hunt however is not prepared to sit back and allow the prize to take care of itself. While next year's prize winner will be published by Flamingo, she says with some exasperation: "Having founded the prize, I'm its director and day to day organiser, it concerns me that no eligible writer from Ireland has yet entered - particularly as I've been told there is a black women's writing group in Cork. I live here. I want writers to enter, this is a useful prize."
