Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week January 8-14

January 15, 2012January 15, 2012 / Whispering Gums / 8 Comments

Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 Badge

Image created by Matt Todd of A Novel Approach

Week 9 of our Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 project and the shortlist has now been announced, as I reported earlier this week. However, we are still reading and reviewing in preparation for announcing “our” Shadow winner in early March, just before the announcement of the winner. This week’s reviews are:

Amitav Ghosh’s River of smoke (India) by Matt of A Novel Approach. Like me, Matt has not read the first book (Sea of poppies) in the planned trilogy, but he says he is now sold on the trilogy. Can’t think of higher praise than that I reckon.
Yan Lianke’s Dream of Ding Village (China) by Lisa of ANZLitLovers. She describes it as a “powerful book” that shows “how quickly a society can degenerate under pressure”.
Anuradha Roy’s The folded earth (India) by Lisa of ANZLitLovers. Lisa calls this “a superb novel” and said she “enjoyed reading it the most”.

Shortlist news

Matt and Fay bravely posted their shortlist “picks” before the announcement, and Mark and Lisa discussed theirs in comments on Lisa’s blog. Stu and I did not have a go at shortlisting. Here is a summary of their selections:

Only one book was selected by all four – River of smoke – and it was selected by the judges.
Only one book was selected by only one, Matt, of the four – The lake – and it was selected by the judges, too!
Three books were selected by Fay, Mark and Lisa – Wandering falcon, The good Muslim and The sly company of people who care – and the first and third of these were also selected by the judges.
Please look after Mom was selected by Matt, Fay and Mark and by the judges.
Dream of Ding Village was selected by Matt, Fay and Lisa and by the judges.
The folded earth and The valley of masks were selected by Matt and Lisa but not by the judges.
Rebirth was selected by the judges but by none of our four, but then only one of them had read it due to limited availability for this title.
The colonel and IQ84 were not selected by our four or by the judges.

There’s a fair degree of unanimity regarding the shortlist, but this doesn’t mean that picking “our” Shadow winner will be straightforward. There are some strong feelings about some of the differences … Let’s just hope there won’t be blood on the floor! We’ll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, if you want a succinct rundown on the shortlisted books, you can read team member Mark’s article, “Your guide to the Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist”, in the online magazine, The Millions.

Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 Shortlist announced

January 10, 2012January 14, 2012 / Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

Image created by Matt Todd of A Novel Approach

… And my preferred two books – those by Ahmad and Yoshimoto – of the three I’ve read are in the final seven books. Woo hoo … but I have a lot to read to catch up to the rest of the team.

The shortlisted books are:

Jamil Ahmad’s Wandering falcon
Jahnavi Barua‘s Rebirth
Rahul Bhattacharya’s The sly company of people who care
Amitav Ghosh‘s River of smoke
Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please look after mom
Yan Lianke‘s Dream of Ding Village
Banana Yoshimoto‘s The lake

You can find our Shadow team’s reviews by clicking the team logo in the blog sidebar or by clicking on the Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 page.

Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week December 26-31

January 1, 2012January 2, 2012 / Whispering Gums / 8 Comments

Image created by Matt Todd of A Novel Approach

Week 7 of our Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 longlist reviewing project and we’re moving along with less than two weeks now to the shortlist announcement. This week’s reviews are:

Jahnavi Barua‘s Rebirth (India) by Fay of Read, Ramble who thinks it has some interesting things to say about women’s lives in contemporary India but feels that it’s not fully successful as a novel
Amitav Ghosh‘s River of smoke (India) by Mark of Eleutherophobia. Mark liked it, with some reservations. He feels it’s a little overambitious, trying to do too much, but nonetheless calls it an “epic, intense, richly rewarding novel”.
Haruki Murakami‘s IQ84 (Japan) by Lisa of ANZLitLovers. Lisa didn’t like it much, echoing many of the bloggers’ reviews I’ve read, including Matt who has also reviewed it for our project.
Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please look after mother (Korea) by Mark of Eleutherophobia who liked it, calling it “a quaintly crafted story”.

And, of course, if you missed it, I posted my second review for the project this week: Banana Yoshimoto‘s The lake. My next one will be Jamil Ahmad’s The wandering falcon.

Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize 2011: Reviews from the week of November 13-19

November 20, 2011January 14, 2012 / Whispering Gums / 8 Comments

Courtesy: Matt Todd, A Novel Approach

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: