Sunday, October 18, 2009

5:56 PM | Eric Gamalinda Makes It as Finalist to the Man Asian Prize!

[PR]

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today announced as the shortlisted authors for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize, the leading regional prize for novels unpublished in English. The shortlist, chosen by an international judging panel, was announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where a display about the prize can be seen at the Hong Kong Government pavilion.



The five shortlisted books, chosen from a longlist of 24, are Omair Ahmad's Jimmy the Terrorist, Siddharth Chowdhury's Day Scholar, Eric Gamalinda's The Descartes Highlands (read an excerpt here), Nitasha Kaul's Residue, and Su Tong's The Boat to Redemption.

Chair of the judging panel Colm Toibin, comments: “Reading these books was a fascinating experience because of the range of styles and subjects. The variety of ways in which voice and tone was used in these novels, the sense of commitment to story, the range in the methods of exploring both self and society, the interest in experimenting and making it new, made the time
spent judging this prize rewarding and enlightening.”

The winner of the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize will be announced on Monday, 16 November 2009 at a dinner at the Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong. The winning author will receive US$10,000 and can look forward to publication and wider recognition in the English-reading world. A distinguished panel of judges selects a single work of fiction to be awarded the prize each year. Chaired by Irish novelist Colm Toibin, the 2009 judges include Chinese American author Gish Jen and Indian writer Pankaj Mishra who was also a judge of the 2008 Prize.

The Man Asian Literary Prize was established in 2006 to bring greater worldwide attention to Asian writing and authors. Works submitted for consideration must not yet have been published in English, although they may have been published in other languages. The Prize is jointly administered by representatives of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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 Illustrado 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.

Labels: books, contests, man asian, philippine literature, writers

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