It’s that time of year when the shortlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize is announced, highlighting once again the growing richness of the Asian English language literary world.
AUTHORS from India, China and Japan swept the shortlist for Asia’s top literary prize last Tuesday, with a debut novelist and Nobel Prize winner among those vying for the US$30,000 (RM92,000) award.
Manu Joseph grabbed one of five shortlisted spots for the Man Asian Literary Prize with his debut Serious Men, while Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, was also among the finalists for The Changeling, a story about one man’s investigation into why his brother-in-law killed himself.
In a video conference from Britain last week, Brick Lane author Monica Ali, one of the award’s judges, called Joseph’s story set in the slums of Mumbai “seriously funny” and “ingenious”, while praising Oe for his “rich and complex work”.
Acclaimed Chinese author Bi Feiyu’s Three Sisters, a portrait of contemporary Chinese culture, The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair, and Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa’s Hotel Iris rounded out the five finalists.
