Whenever an artist won a prize, they always told the same story: that shortly before their victory, they had contemplated giving up on acting or singing or photographing rare pelagic birds from rustic, windswept vessels or, in rare cases, had even decided to do so. Alex had heard all the literary variations of this story from tables placed closer to or farther from the stage, and on social media. The story’s particulars were never important. All that mattered was the tuxedo in which it was told.
Alex was aware of never hearing the other story, the one about the person who never won a prize no matter how hard they worked, because he himself had never told it. Alex, who had been longlisted and shortlisted and honorably mentioned, had spent his career taking on too many translations in order to eke out a meager living that had never been supplemented by any award. Not a grant, not a fellowship, not even a residency, although in truth he had rarely applied for those since he didn’t really like to travel. Alex thought of his career in terms of concentric vicious circles: he didn’t win prizes because he didn’t have the time to do great work, and he didn’t have the time to do great work because he didn’t win, and he didn’t apply for other things because he didn’t get them, and he didn’t get them, maybe, because no one on any committee so much as knew of his existence, or at least he could tell himself that, but not anymore, because Alex had made a resolution.
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