AP News, November 13th, 2007
Chinese author Jiang Rong beat four other shortlisted Asian writers to become the first winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize for his best-selling novel "The Wolf Totem."
The $100,000 award is newly established to recognize the region's best literature that has not yet been published in English.
Jiang's "Wolf Totem," first published in Chinese, is about the struggle of life during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution and draws on Jiang's personal experience in the Mongolian grasslands.
The English edition of the book is scheduled for publication in March 2008.
Jiang, born in Jiangsu in 1946, spent 11 years living with nomadic communities in the Chinese border grassland region.
The Beijing-based writer was not able to receive the award in person at a ceremony held in Hong Kong Saturday night because of ill health. But in a statement, Jiang said he was thrilled and honored that his Chinese story caught the attention of the judges.
"I spent 30 years thinking, and six years writing, 'Wolf Totem.' During that process, I hoped to write a story that would appeal to the Chinese sensibility," Jiang said.
Adrienne Clarkson, the former governor general of Canada who led a panel of three judges, hailed "Wolf Totem" as a "panoramic novel" of life in the Mongolian grasslands during the Cultural Revolution period.
The four other writers shortlisted for the prize were Xu Xi of Hong Kong, Jose Dalisay Jr. of the Philippines, Indian author Reeti Gadekar and Nu Nu Yi Inwa from Myanmar.
The annual prize is being sponsored by the London-based financial services company Man Group PLC, which also sponsors the Man Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious award for fiction.
