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The distinguished Man Asian Literature Award recently announced its short-list for the 2008 prize. The list featured two IWP alumni: the Indian novelist Kavery Nambisan (IWP 07) for The Story That Must Not Be Told, and the Chinese novelist Yu Hua (IWP 03) for Brothers.
Nambisan's The Story That Must not Be Told, is a novel about Simon Jesukumar, an ageing widower who lives in a housing colony in Madras. Kavery Nambisan has devoted most of her working life to practice in rural India and has worked as a surgeon in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. She is the author of several novels which have earned tremendous critical acclaim; Mango Coloured Fish, The Scent of Pepper, The Hills of Angheri, The Truth (Almost) About Bharat, On Wings of Butterflies, and several children’s books.
Hua's Brothers is a big, spirited comedy of society running amok in modern China. Yu Hua was born in 1960 in Zhejiang, China. He has published four novels, six collections of stories, and three collections of essays. In 2002 Yu Hua became the first Chinese writer to win the prestigious James Joyce Foundation Award. His novel To Live was awarded the Premio Grinzane Cavour (1998), and To Live and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant were named two of the last decade's ten most influential books in China.