The FAFO of John Boyne and the Polari Prize

When it comes to John Boyne, the real question becomes “Where should one begin?” Known for multiple controversies, Boyne has found himself in the middle of yet another and, as is common for him, he’s the clear villain. It must seem strange to most well-adjusted folks to look at all of these (usually) straight white cis people being cartoonishly evil and watch them all exist without realizing just how out-of-touch they really are with common ethical practice. But Boyne wasn’t evil at the beginning, per se. He was just…dumb. And he wrote a particularly stupid plot.

Boyne is perhaps most well-known for his stupidly-popular (for no real good reason) book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas which was a fairly sophomoric approach to the humanization of Nazis. Not that I have any horse to sit on here since my humanization of Nazis included Omegaverse porn, but hey, who’s keeping score here, him or me? The book has been criticized not just by literary critics but by Jewish scholars and even the Auschwitz Museum, the latter of which Boyne got into a slight tiff with…and lemme tell you, if you’re finding yourself arguing with the Auschwitz Museum over anything outside of their tacit support of Palestinian genocide, well…you’re probably a piece of shit. Fortunately, Omegaverse porn is never going to be used to “teach” the Holocaust in schools so hopefully they’ll never look at me and I won’t have to post a little “K” to get them off my back. The worst part, in my opinion, about Boyne’s novel is its inability to properly synthesize the scope of knowledge that ordinary Germans had about the Holocaust and especially about Auschwitz itself. It wasn’t a secret. It was a known evil. The same way we know about Alligator Auschwitz and Trump’s El Salvadoran prison facility. These were not mysteries. The coddling Boyne did with his character Bruno is unbelievably irresponsible and perpetuates myths about the Holocaust that actively harm our ability to identify signs of future genocide. (Not that being able to see it has stopped it from happening, mind you.)

So what’s he gotten himself into this time? After being unfortunate enough to write a bad Holocaust book and have it become famous, he’s had a few small hiccups here and there—including doing such poor research as to yoink a recipe from the Zelda franchise—but nothing quite to this level of publicity. He could have kept a low profile and just kept doing what he’s supposed to be doing but he couldn’t help himself and had to write a happy birthday article for JK Rowling which put him fully behind her hateful exclusionary beliefs and politics regarding the trans community. Describing himself as a “fellow TERF,” Boyne threw himself whole-hog behind a woman who is consistently putting her money and her influence behind the harm of trans people at the expense of cisgendered women. Being gay, he has yet to understand that trans people were only the first to be targeted and Rowling is no doubt going to eat his face next…but I digress. Boyne’s queer novel Earth, described even in five star reviews as “miserable,” was on the long list for the Polari Prize…and here is where the current drama begins.

The Polari Prize is a United Kingdom LGBTQ+ literary award that first began in 2011, established by Welsh Journalist and activist Paul Burston and considering Burston’s own questionable takes on transgender issues, it shouldn’t be much of a shock to find that Boyne’s Earth was placed on the long list despite his open support of one of the most widely-known bigots of modern time. Nevertheless, since the prize’s growth over the last fourteen years and the wide inclusion of so many identities, it seemed odd to many that someone so hateful of their own community could be considered and for those included in the long list beside him; it seemed antithetical to their purpose in creating art. It was distasteful even for the cover of their book to appear next to his, as many equated it to allowing what amounts to a Nazi sit at their table. It’s a little on the nose for a man who wrote a book sympathizing with the feelings of Nazis to then find himself equated to them not for his fiction but for his actual ideology, isn’t it? Boyne’s views and comments have been described as “inappropriate,” “abhorrent,” and incongruent with the values that make up the LGBTQ+ community’s standards, as many are quite understandably averse to being undermined by exclusionary assholes.

Boyne’s response was mealy-mouthed and wormish, suggesting that the outpouring of criticism and the “bullying” he was facing from what he probably considered to be his own community (it’s not) had brought him close to ending it all but despite that, he wasn’t going to withdraw from consideration, only request that he not move forward to the short list. He mentioned as well that he had to stick around since he still had plenty of books left in him that he had to write. Good luck, my dude, I hope you have fun jorkin’ it on JK’s yacht. I also hope you’re sad the whole time, you insufferable prick.

The Polari Prize, finding itself losing potential winners in droves as they dropped out on principle and also finding itself without several judges who chose not to participate for the same reasons, decided that 2025 just wasn’t worth it and canceled the entire ordeal with a statement that they’re hoping to be back next year. They hung on for as long as they could, putting out diplomatic little statements such as their disregard for writers’ “wider” beliefs beyond their books, but in the end it was for naught. After discussing the issue with funders, authors, etc., Polari issued a statement claiming that their commitment to inclusion has not changed and that they are not and have never been a trans-exclusionary organization. They’re hoping that with some time and some good faith, they can find a way to move forward without having had 2025’s awards go out, focusing instead on learning from this controversy to create a more welcoming space for those it seeks to amplify. An unfortunate casualty of protest, one must hope that the Polari Prize will indeed persevere to create a more steadfast and sensitive arena in which all of the LGBTQ+ can comfortably stand to be acknowledged for their literary accomplishments.

Had it only been that John Boyne had written a tasteless book, I know I would have had a lot more to say in his defense here, but he didn’t just write a tasteless book. This is the difference between having someone who draws or writes Nazi Kink included in your convention and having someone who is an actual fucking Nazi included and having access to the very vulnerable community that they profess to hate and wish to undermine. He’s not a some kind of undercover TERF who keeps his opinion close to his chest that we could pretend hasn’t got a questionable stance, he’s come out and said it and allied himself with the Queen of all Exclusionist Monsters. That’s the bed he made and now he has to lie in it. Had he just written a shitty book, I’m hardly one to begrudge him that. I write shitty books all the time. Hell, I draw Nazi porn. But this guy is a complete piece of crap and he wasn’t afraid to let everyone know it. That’s a him problem now. Don’t let him make it ours.

John Boyne: Fuck Around; Find Out.