Chinese author Su Tong won the $10,000 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel, The Boat to Redemption, the story of a "Communist Party official who moves to a community of boat people after his revolutionary lineage is refuted," the Associated Press reported. The award is given annually to an Asian novel that has not yet been published in English. Previous winners were Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem and Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado.
Judges Colm Toibin, Gish Jen and Pankaj Mishra called The Boat to Redemption "a picaresque novel of immense charm.... It is also a political fable with an edge which is both comic and tragic, and a parable about the journeys we take in our lives, the distance between the boat of our desires and the dry land of our achievement."
The shortlist also included Omair Ahmad's Jimmy the Terrorist, Siddharth Chowdhury's The Descartes Highlands, Nitasha Kaul's Residue and Eric Gamalinda's Day Scholar.
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Recipients of the Governor General's Literary Awards were named yesterday at a ceremony in Montreal, the National Post's Afterword blog reported. Each winner receives $25,000 (US$23,791) and publishers of the winning books receive $3,000.
Governor General's Literary Award winners:
English-language books
- Fiction: The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger
- Non-fiction: A Place Within: Rediscovering India by M.G. Vassanji
- Poetry: The Fly in Autumn by David Zieroth
- Drama: Where the Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring
- Children's literature, text: Greener Grass: The Famine Years by Caroline Pignat
- Children's literature, illustration: Jirina Marton for Bella’s Tree (text by Janet Russell)
- Translation, French to English: Susan Ouriou for Pieces of Me by Charlotte Gingras
French-language Books
- Fiction: Le discours sur la tombe de l’idiot by Julie Mazzieri
- Non-fiction: Pointe Maligne: l’infiniment oubliée by Nicole V. Champeau
- Poetry: Thérèse pour joie et orchestre by Hélène Monette
- Drama: Le bruit des os qui craquent by Suzanne Lebeau
- Children's literature, text: Harvey by Hervé Bouchard
- Children's literature, illustration: Janice Nadeau for Harvey (text by Hervé Bouchard)
- Translation: English to French: Paule Noyart for Le miel d’Harar by Camilla Gibb