Marmite Sandwich Fantasy Is Front-Runner For Fiction Award

The short-list for the Offhand Prize For Fiction has been announced, and the front-runner is a magical-thinking fantasy in which food insecurity, child poverty and malnutrition are banished by the simple expedient of telling parents to give their children a Marmite sandwich and an apple.

‘It Was Good Enough For Me’ is a modern-day morality tale in which ungrateful children and parents who have the audacity to complain about burnt and indigestible slop are transformed by a diet centred on a yeast, sugar and salt-based product containing up to one gram of protein per serve.

The author, Christopher Luxon, who used to work as a roll-on deodorant salesman and whose day-job is now an acronym specialist in a middle-management position, says that in writing the fantasy he drew on his own experiences as someone who has chronically suffered from Empathy Deficit Disorder.

‘Back in my day a Marmite sandwich and an apple in my lunch were enough to make me the hardworking Kiwi I am today. That and a boiled egg and toast soldiers for breakfast, a banana and cheese segment at playtime, more toast and honey when I got home from school, and meat and three vegies for dinner’.