2009 Man Asian Literary Prize

2009 Man Asian Literary Prize Winner Announced

Su Tong's The Boat to Redemption Wins the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize

Hong Kong, 16 November 2009 - A panel of three internationally acclaimed authors and experienced literary judges named Chinese author Su Tong the winner of the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize for his work, The Boat to Redemption, a novel about a disgraced party official forced to make a new life amongst the boat people resulting in revolutionary impulse.

The Man Asian Literary Prize was established in 2006 to bring greater worldwide attention to Asian writing and authors. The inaugural prize was awarded in 2007 to Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, which was published in English to great acclaim in early 2008. Miguel Syjuco¡¦s Ilustrado won the 2008 prize and will be published in 2010. Many of the short- and longlisted works from 2007 and 2008 have also been published.

The distinguished panel of judges includes Irish novelist Colm Toibin, Chinese American author Gish Jen and Indian writer Pankaj Mishra, who was also a judge of the 2008 Prize.

The panel of judges for the 2009 prize praised the winning novel:

"The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong is a picaresque novel of immense charm. It is a story about obsessive love, the story of the relationship between a father and a son, and a story about the revolutionary impulse. It is also a political fable with an edge which is both comic and tragic, and a parable about the journeys we take in our lives, the distance between the boat of our desires and the dry land of our achievement.¡¨

The prize winner was announced at a celebratory dinner at The Peninsula Hong Kong and Su Tong was awarded USD 10,000. The translator for The Boat to Redemption, Howard Goldblatt, was also awarded USD 3,000.

The shortlist of five from which the winner was chosen included Indian writer Omair Ahmad for Jimmy the Terrorist, Indian writer Siddharth Chowdhury for The Descartes Highlands, Filipino author Eric Gamalinda for Day Scholar, Indian writer Nitasha Kaul for Residue and Chinese author Su Tong for The Boat to Redemption.

For complete details, please see the press release.

2009 Man Asian Literary Prize - Shortlist Announced

15 October 2009 - Omair Ahmad, Siddharth Chowdhury, Eric Gamalinda, Nitasha Kaul and Su Tong are today announced as the shortlisted authors for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize, the leading regional prize for novels unpublished in English. For details, click here.

2009 Frankfurt Bookfair

The Man Asian Literary Prize is going to the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair! Please click here to find out more.

2009 Man Asian Literary Prize - Longlist Announced

The Administrative Committee for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize has today announced the longlist of works for this prize:

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 Descar tes 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

Please click here for the biographical information and excerpts.

2009 Man Asian Literary Prize Announces Prestigious Panel of International Judges

Gish Jen, Pankaj Mishra and Colm Toibin will judge this year's Man Asian Literary Prize. For details, click here.