Whose Asian prize is it, anyway?

SPEAKING VOLUMES

No one knows who the author of the Arabian Nights really was, but it is believed that he or she was located in West Asia. And if you read the 'Sindbad the Sailor' story-cycle, you also know that the author had a tremendous curiosity about India.

In Sindbad's time, Baghdad was referred to as 'the City of Peace'; it was a prosperous, rich, civilised town. In the first tale, need drives Sindbad to seek his fortunes on the seas after he has squandered the family riches; in subsequent tales, curiosity and restlessness set him on his voyages.

He found India fascinating from its oceans onwards: "In the Indian waters I witnessed many prodigies. I saw a sea-monster which resembled a cow (probably a dugong) and another with a head like a donkey's ..." He got many details wrong""he assumes that the title Maharajah is the actual name of a particular Indian king, and assures us that the noblest of India's castes are known as the 'Shakiriyahs' (the Kshatriyas), but his interest is palpable, even today.

That interest in other lands was reciprocated by Indians. In the Bengali writer Sharatchandra's novel, Srikanta, there is a vivid description of the ocean passage from Calcutta to Rangoon. Srikanta describes how caste rules break down in Burma, but also finds time to describe the plague that devastates Rangoon.

This curiosity remains between cultures that have either a geographical connection, as there is between Burma and India, or cultures that have historical links in common, as there were between Persia and India. But it hasn't always been constant""the idea of "the West" occupies so much space in our minds that we spend little time exploring our own backyard.

This was a driving force behind the Man Asian Literary Prize, funded by the same Man Group that funds the Man Booker Prize. The Man Booker is bound, sometimes uncomfortably, by geography""it excludes American writers but due to the accidental quirks of Imperial history, writers from many other continents are eligible. The "Russian Booker" has an easier mandate""despite the break-up of the Soviet Union, it is easy to identify a writer or a body of literature as "Russian".

How far do Asians identify themselves as Asian, though? I cannot answer this question in historical or economic terms, but when it comes to literature, we have our barriers up. Even well-read Indians would find it difficult to name Korea's greatest authors, Sri Lanka is not necessarily interested in the literature of Malaysia, Japan isn't reading the best of Pakistani writing. And when we do read each other, we stick with authors who have been identified for us chiefly by curious Western readers in the media or in publishing. This is not such a bad thing""literature is an open community, and I don't care who's picking out the good stuff so long as the good stuff gets to me.

The Man Asian Literary Prize has its heart in the right place""it's open specifically to literary fiction written in any Asian language that have not yet been published in English. This could do a lot to reverse the "Iceberg effect" that many writers suffer from""if you're not published in English, you're invisible to all but a small percentage of your potential readers.

But the controversy that's grown around the 2007 Prize rests in the details. Nury Vittachi, the writer who came up with the idea behind the prize, has been effectively sidelined by Peter Goran, the prize administrator. Both men have played key roles""without Vittachi's idea, there would have been no prize, without Goran's flair for management, there would have been just a magnificent idea floating in mid-air. Without getting into the politics of the Prize, here's the gist of the controversy.

Vittachi feels that an Asian prize deserves Asian judges. The original board was a white male affair; it has since been revised to include judges from Australia, America and Canada""some of them are old Asia hands, some are ethnically Chinese and Andre Aciman, born in Egypt but resident in New York , is suitably cosmopolitan. They have excellent credentials, but Vittachi is not alone in wondering why no Asian writers have been asked to judge what identifies itself as an Asian prize.

The first Man Asian Literary Prize will be awarded in November 2007, and perhaps by then the controversy will have sputtered out. Or perhaps it will lead to larger questions""should ethnicity be the chief qualification for your judges? In which case, who qualifies as an Asian? But once you choose to limit a prize by geography, should the only "Asian" participation be limited to the recipients? If the Man Asian Literary Prize really believes in the shining, undiscovered potential of Asian writing, it needs to work harder to involve Asian writers in the process, rather than ask them to line up for largesse and get out of the way of the real work.

nilanjanasroy@gmail.com  

The author is Chief Editor, EastWest Books and Westland Books; the views expressed are personal