“Asian literature” is an umbrella term that I am currently using for all literature produced in Asia. Once the list of literary awards that I track grows it will allow me to slowly introduce separate categories for individual countries. However, at the moment news about all literary prizes awarded in Asia are reported under this heading.
To see all the latest literary awards news, see the front page of The Burnt Ones: Literary Awards News.
The 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize - Longlist Announced
Date: July 22, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
The longlist for the first ever Man Asian Literary Prize has been announced. The new prize was established to recognize and promote new Asian literature. $10,000 (US) is given to the best new Asian novel “unpublished in English”, and $3,000 to its translator, if eligible.
This year’s longlist is:
Tulsi Badrinath, The Living God
Sanjay Bahadur, The Sound Of Water
Kankana Basu, Cappuccino Dusk
Sanjiv Bhatla, InJustice
Shahbano Bilgrami, Without Dreams
Saikat Chakraborty, The Amnesiac
Jose Dalisay Jr., Soledad’s Sister
Reeti Gadekar, Families at Home
Xiaolu Guo, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
Ameena Hussein, The Moon in the Water
Nu Nu Yi Inwa, Smile As They Bow
Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem
Hitomi Kanehara, Autofiction
N S Madhavan, Litanies of Dutch Battery
Laxmi Narayan Mishra, The Little God
Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
Nalini Rajan, The Pangolin’s Tale
Chiew-Siah Tei, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes
Shreekumar Varma, Maria’s Room
Anuradha Vijayakrishnan, Seeing The Girl
Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, Pichaikuppan
Xu Xi, Habit of a Foreign Sky
Egoyan Zheng, Fleeting Light
Filed under Asian literature, English literature, Fiction, Longlists, Novels, World literature
Kesako Matsui awarded the Naoki Prize
Date: July 18, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Kesako Matsui has won the Naoki Prize, which is a one million yen prize recognizing the best Japanese popular literature by a young author. Like the Akutagawa Award, also the Naoki Prize was established in 1935, and is awarded twice a year.
Filed under Asian literature, Fiction, Novels, Winners, World literature
Tetsushi Suwa wins Akutagawa Prize
Date: July 17, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Tetsushi Suwa has won the Akutagawa Prize for his first novel Asatte no hito (”The person of the day after tomorrow”). The semiannual literary prize is one of Japan’s most prestigious book awards, and was established in 1935 in memory of Ryunosuke Akutagawa to celebrate new and rising talent.
Earlier this year Nanae Aoyama won the same prize for her novel Hitori Biyori.
Filed under Asian literature, Fiction, Novels, Winners, World literature
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winners announced
Date: May 30, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
The 2007 overall winners of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize have been announced. The £10,000 award for the overall Best Book and the £5,000 for the Best First Book were chosen from the eight regional winners selected earlier this year.
This year’s winners are:
BEST BOOK: Mister Pip
by Lloyd Jones
On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens’s classic Great Expectations. …
You can read more about Mister Pip at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
BEST FIRST BOOK: Vandal Love
by D.Y. Béchard
A family curse – a genetic trick resulting from centuries of hardship – causes the Hervé children to be born either giants or runts. An astonishing novel, Vandal Love follows generations of this unique French-Canadian family across North America, and through the twentieth century, as they struggle to find their place in the world. …
You can read more about Vandal Love at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.
Filed under African literature, Asian literature, Australian literature, British literature, Canadian literature, Commonwealth literature, English literature, Fiction, Novels, Winners, World literature
Yu Nagashima wins Oe award
Date: May 18, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Yu Nagashima’s short story collection “Yukon-chan no chikamichi” (”Yuko’s Shortcut”) has won the first Oe Award, named after the Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe. The collection will now be translated into English, following the literary award’s aims to promote Japanese literature overseas.
Filed under Asian literature, Fiction, Short stories, Winners, World literature
Haruki Murakami wins the 2007 Kiriyama Prize for Fiction
Date: April 2, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Haruki Murakami has been awarded the 2007 Kiriyama Prize for Fiction for his collection of short stories entitled Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. The $30,000 prize that was established in 1996 annually recognizes fiction that promotes greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia.
A young man accompanies his cousin to the hospital to check an unusual hearing complaint and recalls a story of a woman put to sleep by tiny flies crawling inside her ear; a mirror appears out of nowhere and a nightwatchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him; a couple’s relationship is unbalanced after dining exclusively on exquisite crab while on holiday; a man follows instructions on the back of a postcard to apply for a job, but an unknown password stands between him and his mysterious employer. In each one of these stories, Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended, leaving the reader dazzled by this master of his craft. “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” is Murakami’s most eclectic collection of stories to date, spanning five years of his writing. An introduction explains the diversity of the author’s choice. …
You can read more about Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk