Shih-Li Makes it to Shortlist

Well blow me down! Shih-Li Kow has now been shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize!

Four out of six collections nominated for this year's short stories award are by first-time writers, and bumped off the list are *gulp*some pretty big names including Kazuo Ishiguro and Ali Smith. (All the shortlisted writers are profiled here.)

Hope this opens all the doors for Shih-Li, including much deserved international publication.

My review of Ripples should be in Starmag this Sunday. (Been waitin' quite a while for it to come out ...)

Shih-Li for Frank O'Connor

Congratulations to Shih-Li Kow and to Silverfish. Ripples has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story prize (as Wena Poons Lions in Winter was last year).

The list is 57 strong (up from 38 last year) with most entries coming from the US and UK, and there are some pretty big names on there, including Chimananda Ngozi Adichie and Kazuo Ishiguro.

As The Short Review says :

... this is a wonderful move on the part of the organisers, giving much-needed publicity to many, many books not published by mainstream publishers but by small presses without teams of publicists ... . What is also wonderful is that "big" names are alongside newer writers, showcasing that the short story is not just the province of those who have yet to "graduate" to novels!

(Thanks Steven of Horizon Books for sending me the news and the links!)

Shih-Li's Ripples

Raman was kind enough to give me a copy of Shih-Li Kow's collection Ripples and Other Stories when I dropped by the shop this afternoon. I really want to read it, especially after reading Amir Muhammad's praise for it in the Malay Mail.

(Really - blessings be on Amir's head for making such an effort to write about Malaysian books in his Pulp Friction columns, which you can read here. And in this case, I was amazed that this review was published even before I was aware the book was out!! No flies on this guy.)

But we're talking about Shih-Li, about whose contribution to the earlier Silverfish collection News from Home, had me saying that that sampler:

... left me hungry for much much more from this writer ...

Raman stuck a press release in the bag with the book. He says he has decided to nominate her for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the South East Asia and South Pacific First book category. I hope it can also be entered (following Wena's lead) for the Frank O'Connor.

We have no hesitiation in pronouncing this one collection of short stories Malaysians can be proud of. There is no 'cringe' factor here. Shih-Li kow proves that we don't have to leave the country and live elsewhere to be a good writer. She will inspire many.

says Raman, who also tells us that :

Ripples and other Stories was a pleasure to work with. it is not often that a publisher says this because writers can be notoriously precious about their work (even when it is not very good). waiting for them to fisnihs writing to a dateline is bad enough. and once they have finsihed the first draft, they think that they are done, that their work is perfect. It is normally impossible to get them to rewrite anything. ... But not with Shih-Li Kow. She promised to send her work in by the end of October, and she did, despite her hectic work and home-making schedule. She works as an executive for six days a week while bringing up her ten-year-old son, Jack. While other writers expend their creativity in cooking up excuses for not completing their work, Shi-Li uses her creativity to write. And when she was told that she would have to tweak her work a little more, she had no hesitation. She is a perfectionist who takes pride in her work and would not allow anything she is not absolutely satisfied with to be published.

Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. I'll be letting you know how it tastes.