man asian literary prize – Three Percent

2009 Man Asian Literary Prize Longlist

Chad Post — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:45:10 +0000

The twenty-four title longlist for the was announced last week and is listed in full below. The press release has bio information for all of the authors, but not a lot of info on their books.

(Just as Michael Orthofer has his bit about how I have my standard complaint that the best way of increasing awareness and appreciation for these “unpublished works of Asian fiction in English” is to include excerpts on the website.)

Anyway, here’s the list:

Gopilal Acharya, With a Stone in My Heart

Omair Ahmad, Jimmy the Terrorist

Siddharth Chowdhury, Day Scholar

Kishwar Desai, Witness the Night

Samuel Ferrer, The Last Gods of Indochine

Eric Gamalinda, The Descartes Highlands

Ram Govardhan, Rough with the Smooth

Kanishka Gupta, History of Hate

Kameroon Rasheed Ismeer, Memoirs of a Terrorist

Ratika Kapur, Overwinter

Mariam Karim, The Bereavement of Agnes Desmoulins

Sriram Karri, The Autobiography of a Mad Nation

Nitasha Kaul, Residue

R. Zamora Linmark, Leche

Mario I. Miclat, Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions

Clarissa V. Militante, Different Countries

Varuna Mohite, Omigod

Dipika Mukherjee, Thunder Demons

Hena Pillai, Blackland

Roan Ching-Yueh, Lin Xiu-Tzi and her Family

Edgar Calabia Samar, Eight Muses of the Fall

K. Srilata, Table for Four

Su Tong, The Boat to Redemption

Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, Shadow of the Red Star

The shortlist will be announced in October, and the winner on Monday, November 16th.

2008 Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlist

Chad Post — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:47:16 +0000

Still catching up on the news of the past week, including the announcement of the for the Man Asian Literary Prize.

The five shortlisted authors and their books are:

Kavery Nambisan, The Story that Must Not be Told

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, Lost Flamingoes of Bombay

Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado

Yu Hua, Brothers

Alfred A. Yuson, The Music Child

More information about these titles—including samples!—can be found on the offical

2008 Man Asian Literary Prize Longlist

Chad Post — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:57:14 +0000

The Man Asian Literary Prize is an annual award for the best Asian novel unpublished in English. As stated on the the prize has three main goals:

To bring exciting new Asian authors to the attention of the world literary community;

To facilitate publishing and translation of Asian literature in and into English; and

To highlight Asia’s developing role in world literature.

Last year (the inaugural year for the award), the winner was Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, which was promptly translated into English and published to mixed reviews.

Yesterday the long list for the 2008 award was announced:

Tulsi Badrinath, Melting Love
Hans Billimoria, Ugly Tree
Ian Rosales Casocot, Sugar Land
Han Dong, Banished!
Anjum Hasan, Neti, Neti
Daisy Hasan, The To-Let House
Abdullah Hussein, The Afghan Girl
Tsutomu Igarashi, To the Temple
Rupa Krishnan, Something Wicked This Way Comes
Murong Xuecun, Leave Me Alone, Chengdu
Kavery Nambisan, The Story that Must Not be Told
Sumana Roy, Love in the Chicken’s Neck
Vaibhav Saini, On the Edge of Pandemonium
Salma, Midnight Tales
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, Lost Flamingoes of Bombay
Lakambini A. Sitoy, Sweet Haven
Sarayu Srivatsa, The Last Pretence
Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado
Amit Varma, My Friend, Sancho
Yu Hua, Brothers
Alfred A. Yuson, The Music Child

The Man Asian Literary Prize website does have short bios for each of these authors (and sometimes contact info), although I think they would have a better chance of accomplishing their goals if they had excerpts online. Or printed a “Man Asian Prize Sampler” with 10-15 page excerpts from each of the longlist finalists. That sort of publication would go a long way with publishers, and I’m sure there are a number of Chinese translators out there that would be interested in working on something like this . . .

In terms of the Prize, the five finalists will be announced around November 1st, with the winner being announced at the end of November.

Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlist

Chad Post — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:12:45 +0000

The shortlist for the 2007 has been announced. The five finalists are:

Jose Dalisay Jr., Soledad’s Sister
Reeti Gadekar, Families at Home
Nu Nu Yi Inwa, Smile As They Bow
Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem
Xu Xi, Habit of a Foreign Sky

Is anyone out there familiar with any of these titles? The Man Asian website kind of, well, sucks, and is really lacking in useful information. The are mini-bios of the authors, but nothing about the books. Not even the name of the publishers, much less excerpts in English or anything else that would be helpful to interested readers. (The email addresses for some of the writers are available though . . . which is kind of odd.)

Thankfully, the has some additional information.

And for what it’s worth, my money is on Jose Dalisay Jr. for his reverse Weekend at Bernie’s novel.