Asia-Pacific Writing Partnership

The Cork City – Frank O’Connor Short Story Award is the world’s richest and most prestigious prize for the form and is sponsored by Cork City Council. It is awarded to the best new collection of the year. Previous winners have included Haruki Murakami (Japan),  Jhumpa Lahiri (USA) and Simon Van Booy (UK). On two occasions the award has gone to an author for their first book: Yiyun Li (China) in 2005 and Miranda July (USA) in 2007.

The organsers noted ‘ a surge of entries from Asia, accounting for one fifth of all titles’.  Among the 50 books longlisted for the award, these are the 10 books written by Asians. These are:

1. Temsula Ao (India), Laburnum, Penguin
2. O Thiam Chin (Singapore), Never Been Better, MPH Publishing
3. Venita Coelho (India), The Washer of the Dead, Zubaan – Penguin
4. Dhruba Hazarika (India), Luck, Penguin
5. Manoj Kumar Panda (India), The Bone Garden and Other Stories, Rupantar
6. Wena Poon (Singapore), The Proper Care of Foxes, Ethos Books
7. Mahmud Rahman (Bangladesh), Killing the Water, Penguin
8. Bubul Sharma (India), Eating Women, Telling Tales: Stories about Food, Zubaan – Penguin
9. Kalpana Swaminathan (India), Venus Crossing, Penguin
10. David T. K. Wong (China), Chinese Stories in Times of Change, Asian Stories – Muse

A shortlist of six will be announced at the beginning of July. The winner will be chosen in September and receive the award at the close of the world’s oldest annual short story festival in Cork.

One Response to “Ten Asian Writers Long Listed For World’s Richest and Most Prestigious Short Story Prize”