Dipika for Man Asian Literary Prize

The longlist for this year's Man Asian literary prize has been announced and you can find it here, with more information about the award and each of the authors here in the Press Release.

And one of them - Dipika Mukherjee who was nominated for her unpublished novel Thunder Demons - will be appearing at Readings@Seksan tomorrow! Biggest congratulations to her. (And, in fact to all the authors.)

If her name sounds familiar, it may well be that you have come across the two collections of local short stories she edited : The Merlion and The Hibiscus (Penguin 2002) which brought together Malaysian and Singaporean writers, and Silverfish New Writing 6 (p0ssibly the strongest anthology of the series).

Apparently entries for the competition came from Malaysia but none of them made the cut this time. This, though, is the award to aim for if you have a novel in the works. Next year, then. Next year.

Syjuco on Asian Writing

I write against Southeast Asian exoticism and books that italicise Tagalog words or place names ... The Filipino or Asian experience is global. To say that a novel has to be set in Asia to be Asian is completely wrong.

Well exactly!

Winner of last year's Man Asian Literary Prize Miguel Syjuco is interviewed in The Australian [via]. He also suggests that:

Asian writers in general have a duty to expose the "cancers of their society" perhaps to an even greater extent than Western writers.

Go to it chaps!

Syjuco Wins Man Asian

The Man Asian Literary Prize was awarded a few days ago to Montreal-based Filipino author Miguel Syjuco for his novel Ilustrado :

... a fictional account of a young Filipino caught within a notorious scandal spanning over the Philippine history

The award judges said about the novel that it :

... seems to us to possess formal ambition, linguistic inventiveness and sociopolitical insight in the most satisfying measure. Brilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed, it covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour.

Syuco is interviewed about his win on The Ampersand blog.

The Literary Saloon has some interesting comments about the prize :

While we support the general idea behind this prize -- to provide a leg up for Asian authors (well, authors from those parts of Asia they deign to consider ...) -- we have to wonder once again about the winner. Ilustrado actually sounds like a fun book and we look forward to seeing it in print -- as the Crispin Salvador Wikipedia-page suggests, Syjuco is onto something -- but this is also an author who has been through the Columbia University MFA programme, and who lives in Montreal. We're all for the breaking down of literary borders, bla bla bla, but can't help but notice how many of the authors sold to us as of X nationality live in country Y -- which, something like eight times out of ten, turns out to be the US or UK (and the ninth time out of ten, as here: Canada); nine times out of ten they also conveniently write in English. ... We understand that this is the way the industry works, and that writers obviously choose the easiest route to publishing acceptance -- obviously you increase your chances of getting any sort of publishing deal if you go through the US MFA-mill rather than, say, staying in Manila and write in Tagalog ... -- but we'd love to see some more fostering of local literary scenes, and not just that transnational one.

The MFA /MA in Creative Writing route seems to me an eminently sensible one for anyone who takes their writing seriously (and can afford it!) - but I too would love to see unpublished writers and so far agentless authors from within Asia get their big break.

If you have a manuscript, why not take the chance and send it in for next year's prize?

Postscript :

Richard Lea on the Guardian blog decides it's too early for cynicism.

Chinese, Philippino, Indian Authors on Man Asian Shortlist

Oops. Missed announcing the shortlist for the Man Asian Prize which this year features two Chinese, two Indian, and two Philippino authors. The finalists are :

The Story that Must Not be Told by Kavery Nambisan
Lost Flamingoes of Bombay by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Brothers by Yu Hua
The Music Child by Alfred A Yuson

The winner will be announced on Thursday 13 November, 2008 at a ceremony in Hong Kong.

You can find out more about the authors and read extracts from each book here. See also Alison Flood's article in the Guardian.

Malaysian authors are of course eligible to enter the prize, so if you have a manuscript nearing completion, do consider sending it in for next year's competition.

Strong Filippino Showing on Man Asian Longlist

The longlist for the second Man Asian literary prize has been announced. There's a very strong showing from Indian and Filippino authors this time, and three Chinese authors listed. But sadly (for us!) no Malaysians to root for this time :

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

The shortlist will be announced in October, with the winner in November.

You can read about the authors here and should you wish to check out the rules so you can get your manuscript ready for next year, they're here.

Postscript :

Amit Varma explains on India Uncut how he was selected for the longlist on the strength of her first three chapters, and how he has to finish his novel in progress by August 1 to stay in the running. Work in progress is considered. Now that should spur some of you on!

Man Asia Wants Your Manuscripts

For those of you eligible and with a manuscript ready to go, the deadline for this year's Man Asia Literary prize is 31 March. (All you need to know about submitting is here.)

Literary Saloon still finds the definition of "Asia" way too narrow and says this:

... remains a South/East Asian rather than truly Asian literary prize.

and also links to Sheela Reddy's interview with prize-head Peter Gordon in Outlook India.

The panel of judges (the ethnicity of which stirred controversy last year) now includes Indian author, Pankaj Misra.

Man Asian Teething Problems

Starmag invited Nury Vittachi to write about the Man Asian prize and I think he has done a great job of filling in the background for readers and waving the flag of encouragment for Asian writers.

He also highlights some of the teething problems the prize has faced:

Getting the funds and the green light from Man Group Plc took several years. Internal boardroom battles among the organisers changed the leadership of the prize, leaving a widespread feeling that it had become controlled by Western expatriates.

There is continuing controversy over the choice of countries allowed to submit. Malaysia was accidentally omitted, but then reinstated. Other countries, such as Mongolia, are still missing from the list.

(The omission of Malaysia from the list was a small hiccup, rectified in hours; the omission of Mongolia much more serious.)

And then there is the new controversy that has sprung up since the announcement of the winner:

Critics have pointed out that while the prize was intended for authors unpublished in the West, the organisers actually handed it to a wildly successful and very wealthy writer who already has massive publishing contracts around the world.

“Jiang Rong is quite possibly the very last author in Asia who needs what the prize offers,” said an academic at the unofficial support website, themanasianliteraryprize.com. Another online literary commentator, The Literary Saloon said the prize “was created in order to facilitate publishing and translation of Asian literature in and into English – so, of course, the first time they hand out the award, they give it to the one title that has already gotten heaps of international press and been sold for large advances!”

The book has already sold two million copies ... and there's the possiblity that penguin deliberately held back the publication of the English edition of the book so that it could be entered for the prize.

One anonymous commenter on the letter page of the Man Asian Literary Prize site (the unofficial one) says:

Jiang Rong's book was purchased by Penguin in 2005 and translation work started afterwards with the book scheduled to be published in English on the Penguin 2007 list. However it was delayed until March 2008 thus becoming eligible under a technicality to be entered for this this prize for unpublished works. You can check with contacts at Penguin.

But of course, the judges can only chose the best of the novels in front of them, and even if Penguin did manipulate their timing of events, they certainly did nothing illegal.

I guess the mechanics of the award will be closely scrutinised for the future. But anyway, what is a literary prize without a little controversy?

Worth reading on the aftermath of the prize is the very well written piece by an "UK academic specializing in Asian Studies" quoted in Nury's article.

Nice of Nury by the way to mention my blog:

... one of the liveliest discussion venues in Asia for debate about the prize.

(Ahem!)

and the controversy we stirred about the Asian story arc thing. I am not finished with the topic yet (at least in my own head if not on the blog) and won't be for a while!

But it is so nice to feel that there is a wider discussion going on about Asian writing and how to grow and encourage it. I'm really glad Nury agreed to write for us and hope he will do so again.

There's also a very good review by Janet Tay of The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Must read this.

Novel of Mongolian Grasslands Wins Man Asian

Congrats to Jiang Rong, winner of the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize.

Adrienne Clarkson, Chair of the judges described his Wolf Totem as :

A panoramic novel of life on the Mongolian grasslands during the Cultural Revolution, this masterly work is also a passionate argument about the complex interrelationship between nomads and settlers, animals and human beings, nature and culture. The slowly developing narrative is rendered in vivid detail and has a powerful cumulative effect. A book like no other. Memorable.

The novel is semi-autobiographical and written under a pseudonym: the author's true identity is not publicly known.

This about him from the Man Asian website:

Jiang Rong was born in Jiangsu, southern China, in 1946, and graduated from the middle school attached to China Art College in 1966. In 1967, Jiang joined the first wave of intellectuals who moved to the countryside as volunteers, living with nomadic communities on the Chinese border of Inner and Outer Mongolia for 11 years. Following his return to Beijing in 1978, Jiang embarked on postgraduate studies in political science at the renowned Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and assumed an academic position at a Beijing university. Now retired, he lives in Beijing, with his wife.

He wins US$10,000, while his translator wins US3,000.

Update:

The Guardian has a very good piece on the book and names the author as Lu Jiamin. The book has already been a publishing sensation in China where:

...it has sold two million legal copies, along with an estimated 10 times that number of pirated books. It has been the subject of literary debates, management motivation courses and military training lectures.

Postscript:

Here's an interview with Jiang Rong from the Guardian.

Isn't it About Time?

How lovely it was just now to pick up a copy of the International Herald Tribune just now and see Xu Xi's* face on the cover!

One of the finalists in the Man Asian Literary prize, she tells David Greenlees just how difficult it was to break into being published in the internationally, but how, as soon as she was shortlisted, three publishers, one from New York, one from London and one from Australia called her agent.

Xu Xi's reaction:

This is nice; isn't it about time?

Greenlees believes it is a sentiment many Asian authors would share but believes that:

... there are signs the Asian literary industry is starting to come of age, increasing the opportunities for many more Asian writers to gain international recognition.

International publishers and literary agents say they are seeking many more works in Asia to bring to English-language audiences. They are also looking for new voices and genres that go beyond what publishers call "scar" or "misery" literature - about life in poverty under repressive regimes - and capture the rapid social and economic transformation of the new Asia.

At the same time, they say Asia is building the infrastructure for a developed literary industry. They say it can be seen in the growth of international publishers opening regional offices to scout for talent and sell books in fast-growing English- and local-language markets; the emergence and greater importance of Asian literary festivals; and the numbers of Asian works being translated into Western languages.

Which has to be good news for authors here too.

The winner of the prize is announced tomorrow, but I hope all those short and longlisted turn out to be winners because the prize has got them noticed.

The IHT article is very sadly Nury-less. I feel for you, mate.

Postscript:

The Complete Saloon is still a little sceptical about the whole M'A'LP as it calls it.

*Xu Xi is, incidentally, a Silverfish "lapper" so there's another reason to cheer her on!

Are Asian Stories Different?

Hang on! There's something else as well!

I dropped by Nury Vittachi's blog and found that after deliberately not writing about the controversy for months

because it is important that the focus goes on the writers, not on the backstage shenanigans

he was lured out to comment once more on the choice of judges for the prize:

Not only was it racially and culturally insensitive, but it raised some massive issues ...

he said. And this seemed to be the massivest:

Asian story arcs differ significantly from Western ones.* Our narrative traditions are also totally different. And modern Asian story conventions are simply not the same as classic ones, nor Western ones, nor do they trace their roots to the Greek drama form which is the bedrock of Western tale-spinning. I failed miserably to get any of the organizers to understand these issues or take them seriously.

(*My emphasis.)

Now this question intrigues me because I must say that I hadn't given it much thought until The Stars Rise in the East panel discussion at the Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival when Xu Xi (who is incidentally one of the shortlisted authors for the Man Asian) talked about how Asian ways of telling stories differ from western ways.

Let me quote Ann Lee's article on the festival which appeared in Off the Edge, because clearly Ann was taking better notes than me!:

Xu Xi, maintains that there are Asian ways of storytelling - a climax at the end of the story is 'very western, very Greek'. She suggested, wryly, that perhaps as in the tale of Buddha, a short story should just 'mosey along, this way and that, and then one day achieve enlightenment if it happens'.

Xu Xi slipped in a very interesting example from the work of psychologist Richard Nisbett showing how groups of Asians and westerners tended to read the same news article very differently. (I wish I had the exact quote ...).

So Nury's point, I suppose, is that because Asians think differently, this is going to be reflected in the way that Asian authors write and therefore the best people to judge the writing and understand the cultural nuances are people with the same way of perceiving the world i.e. other Asians.

The influence of different writing traditions would, I suppose, have to be factored in too.

Now all this leaves me once again with more questions than answers. Would be grateful if you could help me out, dear reader, because you are likely to have a broader perspective than I have.

The Man Asian prize remember is for a novel, that most western of literary forms.

First, do Asian stories and Asian novel (particularly for us here Malay novels, Chinese novels) have a different story arc from western novels?

Would this be true also of Asian movies vs their western counterparts?

Is good storytelling the same thing in all cultures?

Are Malaysian novelists writing in Malay or in Chinese or in English more influenced by the literary traditions of those languages, or by western writing ... or indeed by other factors?

(As British novelist Patrick Gale pointed out in another session at Ubud, the dominant form of story telling now is the computer game and probably this is even truer in Asia than in the west!)

And if one of the aims of the prize is win Asian writers greater exposure and acceptance internationally, doesn't their work also have to succeed by western standards?

I've a feeling that Nury has opened up a big can of worms with this talk about story arcs and I suspect it would take a lengthy academic thesis to even begin answering the question!

Still, the debate could be very interesting!

Absense of Asianness?

A South Asian journalist who does not wish to be named and is moonlighting from her newspaper sent me this article (unpublished in the press) and I thought it might interest you too:

COLONIALISM FEAR OVERSHADOWS ‘ASIAN’ PRIZE

Asians submit, but Western expats stand in judgment

November 6, 2007

THE NAME of the Asian author who will receive the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize will be finally revealed on Saturday, November 10th. But will the names of the people giving out the prize also become more apparent?

The press release doesn’t give the organizer’s names. Communications tend to use the term “Administrative Committee”. Even the front pages of their website prefer to use that anonymous phrase, with the actual names tucked away on deeper link. Why are administrators so shy about revealing who they are?

The prize is for authors from most countries in Asia, but the administrative team consists entirely of a small group of Western expatriates living in Hong Kong: none are Asian. The organization also includes a three-person judging team: two from North America and one from Australia. Although one is Chinese-Canadian, not one of the judges lives or works in Asia.

The missing Asian roots at the top of the organization has been noticed by critics, and the administration’s reticence about pushing themselves forward suggests they’re also aware that this issue could crucially undermine the prize’s legitimacy in many eyes.

ABSENSE OF ASIAN-NESS

The absence of Asian-ness is curious given that the prize grew out of a very Asian journal called the Asia Literary Review, started in 1999 by Hong Kong-based Sri Lankan author Nury Vittachi and Indonesian-Chinese novelist Xu Xi. The journal, like the award, is for “works as yet unpublished in English”, a clever concept that enabled its editors to include Asian authors who initially produce their work in their vernacular languages (as Chinese and Indonesian authors do) and those who work in English (as many South Asian authors do).

The new prize was born in January last year. Vittachi made a presentation to the board of director of Man Group plc, sponsors of the Man Booker Prize, showing how this principle could be used as the foundation of an award. He received a green light on the spot.

But in the weeks that followed, Vittachi changed the way his book distributor. His former distributor Peter Gordon, who was handling the paperwork for the prize, suddenly became chairman of a separate prize organization and banned the author from any involvement. The shocked Vittachi cried foul, but it was too late. Resources from Man Group plc for the prize went to Gordon’s new organization.

HOST OF ISSUES

Since then, there has been a host of issues debated in a row which has “convulsed the Asian literary scene”, according to news wire services. In news reports and Internet chat-rooms, it has been suggested the new administration “hijacked” the prize.

There was more upset when Malaysia and Mongolia were initially omitted from the list of Asian countries from which Gordon’s administration said entries would be accepted. Another issue is that from the point of view of authors, the prize aimed to create publicity and blaze new networks for Asian authors, but the new administration appears weak on those fronts.

But the choice of expatriate administrators and judges remains the main sticking point. Many South Asian readers and writers found it particularly galling that the South Asian initiator of the prize was dropped, since that region has became legendary for its talent in English literature. “Colonialism is so yesterday,” a commentator said on a literary website managed by Indians. As if to prove the point, almost two-thirds of the entries for this year’s prize were from South Asia.

Amusingly, Vittachi’s supporters have set up a website, , to provide more interactivity than exists on the official site. The independent site “designed to felicitate the awarded” certainly has a more Asian feel to it.

QUALITY THE CONCERN

Prize spokeswoman Rosemary Sayer, an Australian living in Hong Kong, told the press earlier this year that she saw no problems with the judges being from outside Asia, arguing that quality was the main concern. “Why should Asian people judge Asian writers?” she told an interviewer from Radio Television Hong Kong. Concerns about the propriety of Westerners judging the prize were “distasteful”, she said. “I’'ve lived here for nearly 12 years. I’m a permanent resident. Am I not Asian?” The interviewer chose not to respond to that question. More recently, Ms Sayer has declined to answer further questions about the prize.

Meanwhile, Vittachi insists he is not bitter about what happened, although his voice occasionally becomes strident, implying that the opposite is true. He repeats the names of the shortlisted candidates like a mantra – Nu Nu Yi Inwa, Reeti Gadekar, Jiang Rong, Jose Dalisay Jr and his old colleague Xu Xi – and says the focus of attention should be on them, not the administrative problems (although he has called for Asians to take top spots in the administration and judging next year).

“ My joy at seeing my dream come true for these fellow writers far outweighs my disappointment at being banned from the party,” he said, adding with a somewhat tired smile: “It’s amazing what a person can achieve if he doesn'’t mind who takes the credit.”

I know that this is ground this blog has covered before, but the discussion is certainly a relevant one for us, as this is an award Malaysian authors (including those writing in languages other than English) are already aiming for. You have a vested interest in how this award is judged, so what do you guys think?

Personally, I do think Nury was quite right to highlight the issue, it clearly is ridiculous that a prize for Asians isn't judged by Asians, right? (Nury was also treated incredibly shabbily.)

But I also think Rosemary Sayer has a point ... c'mon how long do you actually have had to have lived in a place before you are accepted as being part of the same community?

Would the long-term lit loving mat sallehs such as meself and Robert Raymer be any less valid judges of a prize or editors for an anthology for not having been born here or having sort of pinky-white skin? How would we have to prove our Asianness credentials? (By eating samabal belachan or durian?)

Would we then begin to say that some Malaysians weren't terribly Asian anyway because they were educated in the west, or had lived much of their lives there, or had grown up reading Enid Blyton?

Asian is such a bloody wide term anyway! Does someone from Pakistan, say, have a deeper insight into the fiction of China than a reader from Australia, Canada or Britain?

Face it, we live in a mixed-up muddled-up world where many of us belong culturally in more than one spot on planet earth.

Good literature should be judged as good literature by any judge from anywhere.

Man Asia's Inaugural Shortlist

The shortlist for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Award (focuses on new works as yet unpublished in English and aims to encourage the publication of more works by Asian writers) have been announced, the Guardian reports.

This is the award, of course, that writers here in Malaysia should have their eyes firmly fixed on, particularly as it offers those who write in a language other than English the possibility of much wider recognition and international publication.

The five selected titles are:

Nu Nu Yi Inwa (Burma) Smile as They Bow

(The Rangoon based author sets her fiction among the rural poor and social outcasts. This book was apparently with the censors for a year before it was permitted to be published and then translated, and nowl will be published in English by Hyperion Est in September 2008.)

Reeti Gadekar (India) - Families at Home

(The suicide of a young woman from one of New Delhi's leading families turns out to be not all that it seems.)

Jiang Rong (China) - Wolf Totem

(Based on the author's experience living with nomadic communities on the Chinese border of Inner and Outer Mongolia, and due to be published by Penguin in March 2008.

Xu Xi (Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong!) - Habit of a Foreign Sky.

("Set during the Asian financial crisis (it) provides a snapshot of that tumultuous era, and of the Sino-American relations of the time, in the story of a woman who loses both her mother and son in a single day.")

Jose Dalisay Jr (Philippines) - Soledad's Sister

("... a casket arrives at Manila airport bearing the body of someone called Aurora V Cabahug - who is very much alive.")

Sadly, Malaysian author Chiew-Siah Tei did not make the shortlist, but I am very much looking forward to reading her novel.

Am happy for Xu Xi, whom I met at Ubud last month, and about whom I can boast "I once published her!".

The winner will be announced on November 10 at a ceremony in Hong Kong.

Malaysian Makes 2007 Man Asian Longlist!

The long-awaited inaugural longlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize has been announced:

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

The prize, worth $10,000 focuses on new works as yet unpublished in English and aims to encourage the publication of more works by Asian writers. This year 243 submissions were received, from both established and first time authors, and included translated works as well as works originally in English. the shortlist will be announced in October, and the winner on November 10th, 2007.

Among the best known authors on the list are Xiaolu Guo who wrote the Orange-shortlisted A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, and Hitomi Kanehara's whose first novel Snakes and Earrings was a smash-hit in Japan. More about the award on the Guardian website and information about all the writers in this press release.

There is also a Malaysian on the list- Chiew-Siah Tei, born in Tampin, Negeri Sembilan. She is a bilingual writer who has already won a series of awards with her Chinese prose including the Hua ZongInternational Chinese Fiction Award. She scripted Night Swimmer which won Best Short Film at Vendome International Film Festival. Her play, Three Thousand Troubled Threads, was staged at Edinburgh International Festival. Little Hut of Leaping Fishes is her first novel in English.

Chiew-Siah studied creative writing at Glasgow University and here novelist and tutor Alasdair Gray writes about the novel he saw in progress.

Meanwhile controversy continues to dog the award, particularly with regard to the selection of the judges. Asia Sentinel brings the story up to date. (And thanks C for the link.)

Asian Judges for Asian Prize?

Yesterdays' Star Two carried an article from the Straits Times by Stephanie Yap about the current controversy raging over the Man Asian Literary Prize which began when Nury Vittachi accused the organisers of racial insensitivity .

At the heart of the current controversy over the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize is just how “Asian” its judging panel should be.

According to the chairman of the new prize, Peter Gordon, it should be about rewarding good writing, and the races and nationalities of its judges are irrelevant.

“Asian is a geographical description, and I don’t think one wants to read any more significance into it than that. Do you need to be Russian to appreciate Dostoevsky?”

The Hong Kong-based publisher was in Singapore recently to put out a call for submissions for the inaugural award. He is director of the Hong Kong Literary Festival, which is organising the US$10,000 (RM36,000) Man Asian prize. It is sponsored by hedge fund manager Man Group, which also presents the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

The three judges for the Asian prize, all writers, are: André Aciman, an Egyptian based in New York; Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian; and Nicholas José, a Eurasian Australian who has lived in China and is fluent in Mandarin.

But popular Hong Kong writer Nury Vittachi says the panel did not truly reflect voices from Asia.

”They are Western Asians, not Asian authors in Asia. Some of them look Asian, but that’s not the point. To have a truly international panel, you need Asians as well as Westerners.”

Who do you think is right? Should an Asian prize be judged by Asian judges?

Update:

I'm really grateful to Ron for pointing me in the direction of this post on Literary Saloon which tosses all the questions up in the air and then adds a few of its own. It also takes issue with the definition of "Asia" in the competitions rules awarding the organisers an F for Geography.

Racism at the Hong Kong Litfest?

Shock news (passed on to me by Deepika): novelist Nury Vittachi, the co-founder of the Hong Kong Literary Festival is to be sacked by the organization’s board in a row about racial insensitivity and improper business links.

He claims:

* That he campaigned for years to set up a literary prize, but once sponsorship was obtained, he was cut from the project because of a Westerners-only rule.
* That the festival board, ostensibly non-profit, limits membership to directors and authors of Paddyfield.com and Chameleon Press, companies run by board member Peter Gordon.
* That prime slots in the festival programme were given to Chameleon Press novelists even if they paid for their own publication.

The article (reproduced in full on Nury's blog, source not given) concludes:

While Vittachi’s claims of racism may initially seem hard to swallow given that two of the men on the festival board have Asian partners, yet it is difficult to escape the conclusion that there has been, at the very least, racial insensitivity and a blur between business and festival matters. There is little doubt that Vittachi was one of the key progenitors of the Man Asia Literary Prize. To cut him out after he changed publishers was a move that had to raise eyebrows in the industry. As an extremely well-connected Asian author whose career is in the ascendancy, he would have been an ideal figurehead. In 2007 Vittachi is scheduled to be a featured author at festivals in Germany, Australia and the UK. Furthermore, with a chairman and judges from North America and Australia, the Asian literary prize now feels uncomfortably non-Asian. Without Vittachi, there is no involvement whatsoever from south Asia, the widely acknowledged home of Asian genius in English literature. ... Whatever happens, festival-watchers say the row is likely to force the board to institute the major reforms its outgoing founder recommended. It appears obvious that the group would benefit from having other Asian publishers and bookshops involved, and it will eventually have to open itself up to new members--and preferably Asian ones.

Am extremely sad, for Nury, whom I met at the Ubud Readers' and Writers' Festival.

Related Posts:

New Prize for Asian Writers! (18/11/06)
Man Asian Literary Prize (1/11/06)

Man Asian Literary Prize

The judges for the first Man Asian Literary Prize have just been announced. They are Egyptian author Andre Aciman, previous Governor General of Canada, Hong Kong born Adrienne Clarkson; and author and president of Australian PEN Nicholas Jose. All seem very well qualified for the task and you can read more about them here. The whole venture is flagged off today ... and you can submit your manuscript online. Good luck!

Postscript:

Lydia just dropped me a note in the comments to ask why Malaysia is not listed in the countries from which writers are eligible to take part? Is it just an embarrassing oversight on the part of the organising committee, or has Malaysia just dropped off the map of Asia ... or do they think Malaysians are so hopeless there's really no point asking us?? I've sent an e-mail to ask.

Another Postscript:

Dear Ms. Bakar:

Of course entries from Malaysia are eligible and welcome. What you caught was an error that apparently arose when converting documents from one format to another. Thank you very much indeed for bringing it to our attention. It has been corrected.

Sincerely
Peter Gordon
Man Asian Literary Prize

Related Posts

New Prize for Asian Writers (19/10/06)
Looking for Local Voices (25/9/06)

New Prize for Asian Writers!

Many thanks Jen for posting this link from the New York Times in the comments yesterday:

The investment house that sponsors the Booker Prize has begun a new award intended to recognize Asian authors living in the region and writing in their own language, Agence France-Presse reported. The prize, an annual award of $10,000 to be known as the Man Asian Literary Prize, was announced yesterday in Hong Kong and is to be given next autumn for the first time by Man Investments. Robb Corrigan, a spokesman for the company, said, 'There is a specific goal to bring Asian voices to the global stage.' Peter Gordon, director of the Hong Kong Literary Festival, which took part in the announcement, said the prize would be open to writers in 24 countries in a 'triangle defined by Japan, Indonesia and Afghanistan.'"

This is a great piece of news, tho' the area in question is pretty huge and incorporates established literary heavyweights India and Japan.

But probably the best thing about the prize is that it is open to those who write in a language other than English. Maybe this will provide a much needed boost for our local sasterawan. (Though they need capable translators.)

It's also interesting that Asian writers living overseas - and by extension perhaps, novels written primarily for a Western audience - are disqualified.

You can download more info about the prize from the Hong Kong Literary Festival website. There's also more about it on the Channel News Asia website