(Right to left: Nury Vittachi, Su Tong and Bi Feiyu on tour in Europe)
* * *
But it never disappeared from my personal agenda.
Oddly, rather than lessening my enthusiasm, the launch of the new prize gave me MORE encouragement for my pet project.
Chair of the judges was John Carey, and the shortlisted candidates were people of the class of Doris Lessing, a personal hero of mine. (You can read about the time I met her here.)
It quickly became obvious to me that the international prize did not in any way provide an incentive for new Asian writers, young Asian writers, or even moderately successful writers in Asia.
It was specifically for a body of work by a world-class author who had achieved seniority, a sort of "elder statesperson" qualification. It was for Ms Lessing and people of that stature.
It was certainly not for the authors who I was touring with, or sharing festival platforms with, or whose work was appearing in our journal, who were young and ambitious, and mostly still on their first few books: it was not for Tabish Khair, or Bi Feiyu, or Su Tong.
On a tour of France with two Chinese authors (see pic at the top of this post), I urged them to visit Hong Kong and get their works into English. Su Tong and Bi Feiyu were bright, talented authors, and I told them about our festival and our plans to introduce an Asian literary prize -- because I was still convinced that we needed one.
But clearly Man Group was not going to be the sponsor. We needed someone else.
* * *
At that time, our activitie had had attracted some interest from a fascinating character. Wealthy investment banker Ilyas Khan, who would eventually become publisher of the Asia Literary Review, had revealed a deep interest in playing a role in the promotion of Asian literature.
Could he be a potential sponsor of a prize?
***
(Ilyas Khan)
* * *
At the same time, I was anxious to continue to grow our friendship with the Man Group.
One of the main events of the 2005 festival was an event featuring the reigning holder of the Man Booker Prize, Alan Hollinghurst, in conversation with yours truly.
Many Man Group executives and clients were in the front seats of the audience at the China Club in Hong Kong. So I took the opportunity to use the introduction to tell some funny tales about the history of the Man Booker Prize – including the Ian Fleming golfing story above.
Also, I praised the Man Group for not demanding happy endings, as the previous sponsors had done.
***
(Alan Hollinghurst)
* * *
After the festival, I continued my research on the structure of the Man Booker Prize, and looked at how it would need to be different for Asia.
As well as talking to top authors, I also talked to publishers. Most were of the opinion that a prize for Asia would have to be some sort of “new writers” prize, since there was simply too little top end literary fiction coming out of Asia. A prize for published literary Asian authors might only attract a few dozen entries.
Indeed, there was relatively little publishing of any sort taking place that could successfully cross borders. Thousands of books were being published in China, India and Japan, but few would work internationally.
It was also clear that there needed to be special Asian elements for the prize. To take one example, original material published as ebooks, for example, was sneered at in the west, but I knew from my network of emerging authors that it was already a significant part of the fiction market in the east.
We needed a new concept that would draw in new authors and old ones, writers, readers and publishers. The answer came from a surprise location: Australia.
