Why Won't Women Win Literature Awards?

Rare female winner: Orientalist Annemarie Schimmel

- an ever-interesting question pondered once more in two recent German articles: Novelist Zoë Beck wonders about a lack of female award winners in crime writing in her article Sei wie das Veilchen im Moose... and Jessica of recently founded group-litblog lesErleben asks why the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade has only ever been awarded to six women in its sixty-one-year history (I counted 6 1/2, because in 1970 it was awarded to the Myrdal couple - but what difference would that make?): Schreiben nur Männer engagierte Literatur?! If you've been a reader of GCB for a while, you might also remember poet Katharina Schultens' January 2011 article on the role of female lyricists in German publishing.