A French writer, Jean-Marie Gustave L Clézio, was given the prize. See NYT. One important standard of the academy seems to be clear: obvious writing skills aside, they want someone who they think writes about universal themes, a factor that they’ve said the Americans fall short of. Hmmmm…different strokes for different folks. Actually, I think this is also one reason why Filipino writers don’t make it. More on this later.
Ok, off to wait for the recipient of the Man Booker Prize and its equivalent in Asia, the Man Asian Literary Prize. The latter was launched in 2007. The objectives of the Asian Literary Prize are:
To bring exciting new Asian authors to the attention of the world literary community;
To facilitate publishing and translation of Asian literature in and into English; and
To highlight Asia’s developing role in world literature.
Jose Dalisay’s (of the University of the Philippine’s English and Creative Writing Department) “Soledad’s Sister” was shortlisted last year; Jiang Rong of China received the award for “Wolf Totem.” This year four Filipino novels are included in the longlist- Ian Rosales Casocot’s “Sugar Land,” Lakambini Sitoy’s “Sweet Haven,” Michael Syjuco’s “Ilustrado,” and Alfred Yuson’s “The Music Child.” Not bad!
Arghhh…so many books, so little time (and money).
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