Three Muslim women in Man Asia long list

New Delhi: Three Muslim women found themselves among the 21 selected for Man Asia Literary Prize. The long list of 21 unpublished works includes work from Anjum Hasan, Daisey Hasan, and Salma.

The 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize long list was chosen from submissions received from all over Asia. The largest single group of submissions was from India, followed by the Philippines.
A short list of five works will be announced in October 2008 and winner awarded in November.

This major new literary prize aims to recognize the best of new Asian literature and to bring it to the attention of the world literary community. A distinguished panel of judges selects a single work of fiction to be awarded the prize each year.

Anjum Hasan:

Anjum Hasan is author of Lunatic in my Head (2007), shortlisted for the Crossword Fiction Award, and Street on the Hill (2006). She has been featured in anthologies and journals and she has also contributed to The Hindu Literary Review, Outlook Traveller, Indian Review of Books and Little Magazine. Anjum lives in Bangalore, India and works for the India Foundation for the Arts as the editor of ArtConnect.

Twenty-five-year-old Sophie Das has moved from Shillong to Bangalore in search of work, fun and liberty. Neti, Neti’s action follows an increasingly alienated Sophie and her free spirited friends through offices, pubs, night streets, shopping malls, rock concerts, and the homes of Bangalore’s neo-rich. A shocking murder and an infatuation send Sophie back to the small town of her youth.

Daisy Hasan:

Daisy Hasan grew up in Shillong, India. She is currently engaged in a study of South Asian women’s art in conflict situations.

The To-Let House captures tells the story of the coming of age of Di, Lee, Kule and Addy. The tale unfolds in the city of Shillong, in the north east – one of India’s most troubled areas. As the four children emerge into adolescence, framed by the region’s violent search for identity, their inner and outer worlds hold uncanny mirrors to each other.

Salma ( Rokkiah Malik):

Born in 1968 in Tamil Nadu, Salma’s first poetry collection shocked conservative society where women are supposed to remain silent. In 2003, Salma and three other Tamil women poets faced obscenity charges and violent threats. Salma is now head of the panchayat (local level government body) of Thuvarankurichi, near Trichi in Tamil Nadu. The government of Tamil Nadu has appointed her Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Social Welfare Board.

Midnight Tales focuses on the inner world of Muslim women in the conservative society of Tamil Nadu in south India. This is a world in which women remain within the home, in purdah, while their men occupy the space of the outside world. There is much in these different households that goes on in the hours before dawn, when women wake up to a world as yet absented by men, and where they share thoughts, lives, joys and sorrows.

Works submitted for Man Asia must not yet have been published in English, although they may have been published in other languages. The prize is jointly administered by representatives of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and is sponsored by Man Group plc, a leading global financial services firm based in London

Link:

http://www.manasianliteraryprize.org/2008/2008longlist.php