Prize for most brutal book review

A new literary prize aims to reward book reviews with edge.

A new literary prize aims to reward book reviews with edge.

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The Hatchet Job of the Year Award honours “the angriest, funniest, most trenchant” review published in British newspapers in 2011.

Eight finalists for the prize were announced Tuesday. They include classicist Mary Beard’s dismissal of Robert Hughes’ Rome — “little short of a disgrace” — and Leo Robson’s verdict on

Rachel Bradford’s Martin Amis: The Biography. He said it was “full of spectacularly bad writing —

about spectacularly good writing.”

The prize, set up by the arts review website The Omnivore, will be awarded February 7.

The winner will receive a year’s supply of potted shrimp from the award’s sponsor — a fishmonger.