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
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!
16 comments:
Hi, Shar! You misspelled "Filipino". :D Anyway, I've read The Music Child (Yuson), but I thought it's a short story. Maybe this is the expanded version, in novel form?
(as an aside) I wanna quit my job and write books! waaah.
sorry dear and zillion thanks for the correction. looks like there is a huge shift to writing from your part of the world. ride that pinoy cloud, siege!
Let's hope they don't skip the shortlist to announce a unanimous winner.
Thanks, Shar! I hope I can take a ride in that cloud, and not wake up to learn I've been drifting on hot air. :p
ManAsia - Truly Asia
:-)))
- Poppadumdum
It's appalling that they also accept unfinished works, and that acceptance can be based on the first three chapters. It makes a mockery of the other writers who've submitted full-length manuscripts. The prize committee really should tighten the rules - are they so afraid that there'd be insufficient entries?
Such a practice wouldn't be acceptable for the MAIN prize ie the Man Booker Prize, would it now? Oh wait, didn't Ian McEwan submit the first few chapters of his soon-to-be-finished-and-we're-still-waiting for the novel, "On Chesil Beach", last year?
:-)))
I am SO absolutely in agreement with anonymous. A book is a unit, not 10,000 words of the beginning. A writer has not produced a book worthy of consideration until they have shown that they know how to manage a plot arc, to sustain character development, to maintain writing standard TO THE FINAL page. Thousands of books are started but never finished. And hundreds are finished with terrible endings because the writer lost the plot.
This is ridiculous.
i must say that i was rather shocked too ... what if the overall book in the end isn't as good overall as some of the others which didn't make the longlist?? of course a book all the novels will have to be finished before the shortlist is announced.
That's a good point you raised, Sharon. This prize will soon lack the credibility of the main Booker Prize, if that's the sort of entries they accept.
Er, for what it's worth, Amit Varma is not a 'she'...
anon at 12 - corrected, with all attendant apologies. i seem to be changing everyone's sex these days.
anon at 6.09 - it's impossible to know. in the end you have to trust the judges to do their job and they may have picked some cracking manuscripts. at least the ones they shortlist will be the complete novels and they do have a very long list to choose from.
anyway, the prize is doing a very useful job in highlighting literature from the region and encouraging local authors. it will be very interesting to see some of these finished novels.
it's the only lit prize though where the readers can't participate as we don't have the books or even extracts from them.
Hmmm - I have just re-read the rules for entry, and I think maybe I was a little hard on them, because it now seems to me that what they mean by "longlist" and what is usually meant by "longlist" are 2 different things. To me, a long list is in fact what remains after the first culling of work, by selecting the best from the entries.
I think though that in this case though, "longlist" means any work which is eligible. So they are saying that you can enter with proof of a written submission of 10,000 words, or part of a novel. Correct me if I am wrong.
I'm just mad that I missed this! I never realized they were accepting unpublished novels! I have two of them set in Penang, one completed, and another I had plenty of time to complete. The six months leading up to this deadline I was reworking another novel set in the US. That did get fourth place in the National Writers Association novel contest (same deadline), some consolation for me (but without the prestige) and I'm still waiting to hear from another novel contest that I had submitted it to in April (so there's still hope).
Maybe this happened for a reason. Now I have plenty of advance notice for next year's contest and I shall be entering those two novels.
Thanks Sharon for having this blog so others out of touch with the literary world (but busy writing in Borneo) no longer have an excuse. You keep us informed!
Robert Raymer
Lovers and Strangers Revisited
PS,
I've been hearing great things about you Glenda!
Robert
WhaddidIdo? WhaddidIdo?
glenda - mmm ... i think you wrote some stuff that did quite well!! there was a whole bunch of us inc robert exchanging gossip over dinner sat night and your name came up, so if your ears were burning, that's why.
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