Indian writers dominate the longlist of the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008

The Man Asian Literary Prize is an annual award for an "Asian novel unpublished in English". The first Prize was awarded to the Chinese writer Jiang Rong for his novel Wolf Totem on 10 November 2007.

I remember one of the novels in the long list in 2007 was an english translation of N S Madhavan's Malayalam work Litanies of Dutch Battery . The translator was our own Rajesh. There were 143 submissions this year and 21 have been chosen for the longlist according to a release dated July 22.

The number of novelists in India seems to be increasing by leaps and bounds. Just take a look at the longlist of the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. It seems to be dominated by writers from India or those who are of Indian origin. Among the Indian names I see in the longlist are established well known writers as well as those whose names I am reading for the first time. Here they are:


(1)Tulsi Badrinath Melting Love

(2)Hans Billimoria Ugly Tree

(3)Anjum Hasan Neti, Neti

(4)Daisy Hasan The To-Let House

(5) Rupa Krishnan Something Wicked This Way Comes

(6) Kavery Nambisan The Story That Must Not Be Told

(7) Sumana Roy Love In The Chicken's Neck

(8) Vaibhav Saini On The Edge of Pandemonium

(9) Salma Midnight Tales

(10) Sidharth Dhanwant Shanghvi The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay

(11) Sarayu Srivatsa The Last Pretence

(12) Amit Varma My Friend Sancho

And there is also 1931 born Abdullah Hussein whose novel The Afghan Girl has made it to the longlist. His work has been published in India and Pakistan but to add to the fun his nationality is not mentioned. A delightful list indeed. May the best work win.

Click here to get to the website of the Man Asian Literary Prize.

Read more about those in the running in the article titled
A Man Asian For Every Season, every Reason by Namita Gokhale (Tehelka, Aug 5 2008)