Related Links
Links
Award for fiction
Winner
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
A virtuoso of the form, Jhumpa Lahiri can create an immediate connection between subject and reader that few writers are capable of. We are invested from the very first sentence. These are stories that stay with us because of their authenticity; we are witnesses in a visceral sense, and we identify with her characters and their anxieties and tensions. Lahiri has created a mosaic of first generation life, relying less on what differentiates her characters from the rest of America and more on what makes us the same: our common hopes, fears, wants, and, of course, loves. Each sentence has the lean brilliance of a gem, making every story in this collection its own unique treasure.
-Kirby Kim, Judge for the Fiction category of the Twelfth Annual Asian American Literary Awards
Finalists
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies is a novel that is big (in size and ambition) and bursting with life. In it, the author recreates 19th century India by focusing on a cast of characters who are disparate yet linked. An opium-poppy farm wife, a fallen-from-grace raja, an accidental first naval officer, and a European scientist's daughter wend their way toward a climactic gathering on the Ibis, a ship that carries a motley crew of the highest and the lowest, the best and the worst, toward a great unknown (the Opium Wars in China). In a way, the book is about getting started, leaving an old life behind for a new one, and trying to survive while doing so. Ghosh spells out the endeavor in prose that is full of light and shadow, word play, and riveting description.
- Thaddeus Rutkowski, Judge for the Fiction category of the Twelfth Annual Asian American Literary Awards
Personal Days by Ed Park
The characters in Personal Days find themselves gradually let go without any reasonable pattern. They're actually layed off in decreasing order of height. The most noteworthy warning sign is when their boss praises one of them for doing good work. Such praise also usually leads to an eventual dismissal. The only other pattern to the firing seems to be the letter “J.” Those whose names begin with this letter are the ones being let go. These are some of the conceits of Ed Park’s subversively funny novel Personal Days, which draws the reader into an imploding corporate culture. Formally inventive, the novel moves from first-person plural narration to corporate memo to absurdist modernist email, each section providing insight into the day-to-day life of these workers and gradually explaining the mystery behind the firings. Timely, socially thoughtful, and entertaining, it also touches on the topic of race in subtly insightful ways, challenging assumptions that characters are white unless noted otherwise.
- Min Hyoung Song, Judge for the Fiction category of the Twelfth Annual Asian American Literary Awards