Week 5 of our Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 longlist reviewing project and we're moving along with quite a bumper crop of reviews this week ... Haruki Murakami's IQ84 (Japan) by Matt of A Novel Approach. Matt, a student of Japanese literature, has mixed feelings. He calls it unwieldy, though he also admits that … Continue reading Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week December 11-17
Literary awards
Anuradha Roy, The folded earth (Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011)
Anuradha Roy The folded earth London: MacLehose Press, 2011 257pp. ISBN: 9780857050441
Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week December 4-10
Week 4 of our Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 longlist reviewing project and we're moving along with ... Jamil Ahmad's The wandering falcon (Pakistan) by Stu of Winston's Dad. He, like Lisa who has already reviewed it, liked it for what he felt to be its authentic portrayal of the tribespeople of an area that … Continue reading Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week December 4-10
Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week November 27 to December 3
Week 3 of our Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 longlist reviewing project brings you ... Mahmoud Dowlatabadi's The colonel (Iran) from Lisa of ANZLItLovers. This sounds quite different in style and structure, but worth reading, particularly since it's from a country whose literature is little known to me. Yan Lianke's Dream of Ding Village (China) from Matt … Continue reading Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week November 27 to December 3
Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week November 20-26
Week 2 of our Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 longlist reviewing project (whew!) .... Matt of A Novel Approach is off and running with: Banana Yoshimoto's The lake (from Japan), which is high in my priority list as I've read Yoshimoto before and I'm particularly interested in Japanese literature. And Fay of Read, Ramble with Tarun … Continue reading Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week November 20-26
Monday Musings on Australian Literature: Pondering Meanjin’s Tournament
My recent post on the semifinals of Meanjin's Tournament of Books engendered some comments on the value or validity of the tournament itself - so I thought, having dedicated myself to reporting on the tournament, I should comment on what I think about it as an event. I'll start by saying that I don't take literary competitions … Continue reading Monday Musings on Australian Literature: Pondering Meanjin’s Tournament
Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week of November 13-19
Lisa of ANZLitLovers has hit the ground running with two reviews this week - and she says that already she is going to find it hard to choose between the two. That augurs well (or badly, depending on your point of view!) for our judging, doesn't it? Anyhow, here are links to Lisa's reviews: Jamil … Continue reading Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week of November 13-19
Kyung-Sook Shin, Please look after mother (Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011)
Two of the Man Asian Literary Prize team have cheated! They read and reviewed Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin before our team was formed, and are showing me up big-time. I bear no grudge though and happily point you to their reviews. We are, as they say, on our way! Matt's review at … Continue reading Kyung-Sook Shin, Please look after mother (Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011)
Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize, 2011
This week, to whet your appetite (unbeknownst to you!), I focused my Monday Musings on Asian Australian writers ... What, do you say, was I whetting your appetite for? Well, for a plan to review the longlist for this year's Man Asian Literary Prize, which is an annual literary award given to the best novel* by an … Continue reading Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize, 2011
Howard Jacobson, The Finkler question
Whispering Gums, as you would expect, writes erudite marginalia and so you'd be in for a treat if you ever obtained my copy of Howard Jacobson's 2010 Booker award winning novel, The Finkler question. The margins are peppered with my reactions, like, you know, "Ha!" and "Oh dear". Riveting stuff ... and yet, what comments … Continue reading Howard Jacobson, The Finkler question
Whispering Gums 