On Tuesday, the administrators of the Man Asian Literary Prize released their longlist of twenty-one semifinalists for the 2008 award, given for a novel by an Asian author that has not yet been published in English. The annual prize, now in its second year, is awarded in order to "bring exciting new Asian authors to the attention of the world literary community, facilitate publishing and translation of Asian literature in and into English, and highlight Asia's developing role in world literature." The winning author will receive $10,000.
The semifinalists for the 2008 award are:
Tulsi Badrinath for Melting Love
Hans Billimoria for Ugly Tree
Ian Rosales Casocot for Sugar Land
Han Dong for Banished!
Anjum Hasan for Neti, Neti
Daisy Hasan for The To-Let House
Abdullah Hussein for The Afghan Girl
Tsutomu Igarashi for To the Temple
Rupa Krishnan for Something Wicked This Way Comes
Murong Xuecun for Leave Me Alone, Chengdu
Kavery Nambisan for The Story that Must Not be Told
Sumana Roy for Love in the Chicken's Neck
Vaibhav Saini for On the Edge of Pandemonium
Salma for Midnight Tales
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi for Lost Flamingoes of Bombay
Lakambini A. Sitoy for Sweet Haven
Sarayu Srivatsa for The Last Pretence
Miguel Syjuco for Ilustrado
Amit Varma for My Friend, Sancho
Yu Hua for Brothers
Alfred A. Yuson for The Music Child
Judges Adrienne Clarkson, Nicholas Jose, and Pankaj Mishra will release a shortlist of five finalists on November 1, and the winner will be announced during the last week of November.
The Asian Literary Prize is funded by Man Group, which also sponsors the United Kingdom's Booker Prize, and administered by the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the University of Hong Kong, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Jiang Rong of China won the inaugural award in 2007 for Wolf Totem, which was translated by Howard Goldblatt.
