Finalists for Kiriyama Prize Announced
The Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, awarded to books that "contribute to greater understanding and cooperation among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia" has announced it's nominees for 2005. Topping the list of fiction finalists is 1999 National Book Award winner Ha Jin, for War Trash, a story of a Chinese prisoner during the Korean War. Also nominated for fiction are Rupa Bajwa for The Sari Shop (India) Perumal Murugan for Seasons of the Palm (India) Kelly Ana Morey for Grace is Gone (New Zealand) and Nadeem Aslam for Maps for Lost Lovers (UK). The Nominees for non-fiction are Luis Alberto Urrea for The Devil's Highway: A True Story (U.S.), Charles Wohlforth for The Wale and the Supercomputer(U.S.), Philip Short for Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare a biography of the Cambodian dictator (UK), Masayo Duus for The Life of Isamu Noguchi,
and Suketu Mehta for Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (India). The winners in both categories will be announced March 29 and will receive $15,000.