Australia and Asia's richest literary award longlist announced

The longlist for the richest literary award in Australia and Asia has been released by Culture and Arts Minister John Day.

Mr Day said 12 novels had been longlisted for the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award, worth $110,000.

"This is an extremely competitive field with an incredibly high level of entries," he said.

"The judges have done an excellent job to reduce 111 entries down to these 12 exemplary works of literary fiction.

"Those nominated include Mohsin Hamid's 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' which was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and Michelle de Kretser's work 'The Lost Dog' which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize earlier this year."

'Love without Hope' by Rodney Hall and 'Landscape of Farewell' by Alex Miller were also included in the shortlist for the 2008 Miles Franklin Award.

Chair of the judging panel Nury Vittachi said the mix of previously recognised works and those that may be unfamiliar was particularly exciting in the longlist.

"These titles are an excellent representation of the vision we had for a truly pan Asia-Australian award," Mr Vittachi said.

The Minister said the award was open to any book-length work of literary fiction published in print or electronically.

The judging panel consisted of three renowned authors and literary experts drawn from the countries eligible to nominate:  Pakistani born and multi-award winning author, Kamila Shamsie, author of 'Kartography' and 'Broken Verses'; Sri Lankan born, Hong Kong based columnist and founder of the 'Asia Literary Review', Nury Vittachi; and Melbourne-based literary critic, Peter Craven.

The $110,000 prize makes the award the richest in the nation.  Where the winning entry has been translated into English, the author will receive $88,000 and the translator $22,000.

The award is open to works written by an author resident in Australia or Asia, or which are primarily set in Australia or an Asian country.  Works must have been either written in, or translated into English and published in the preceding year.

Mr Day also announced the 28 works shortlisted for the seven award categories comprising the 26th Western Australian Premier's Book Awards.

"These pieces have been chosen in the following award categories: Non-Fiction; Fiction; Children's Books; Poetry; Scripts; Young Adults; and History," he said.

"One of those winning titles will then receive the Premier's Prize at the Awards ceremony to be held on November 21 at Fraser's Restaurant in Kings Park.

"This will also be the occasion at which we announce the Australia-Asia Literary Award."

More information about the shortlisted authors and their works can be obtained by visiting http://www.dca.wa.gov.au or by phoning Shauna Weeks at the Department of Culture and the Arts on 9224 7391 or by emailing shauna.weeks@dca.wa.gov.au.