Press Contact: Ellen Ryder, 212/226-6563
ellen@ellenrydercommunications.com

SAN FRANCISCO (March 23, 2004) – The judges of the 8th annual Kiriyama Prize announced today a list of 45 “Notable Titles” – 20 fiction and 25 nonfiction books – pertaining to the cultures of the Pacific Rim and Southern Asia.

The announcement accompanied the news of the 2004 Kiriyama Prize Winners: for nonfiction, Inga Clendinnen, Dancing with Strangers (Text Publishing, Melbourne, Australia) and for fiction, Shan Sa (Adriana Hunter, translator), The Girl Who Played Go (Alfred A. Knopf, New York; Chatto and Windus UK).

The 2004 Kiriyama Prize Notable List not only recognizes excellence in works about the Pacific Rim and South Asia, it also serves as a current bibliography and new reference source for book lovers, students, scholars, researchers, and any reader looking for information pertaining to this region of the world.

The complete 2004 Kiriyama Prize Notable List follows this release. Taken together, the books on the 2004 Notable lists paint a vast portrait of the rich – and often tumultuous – history and heritage of these countries, and many explore issues of war, cultural clashes, and the immigrant experience. The titles come from a range of publishers around the world, with many newly available in paperback and via Internet ordering.

Among this year’s Notable fiction authors are Pulitzer Prize Winner Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake); Suji Kwock Kim, an American poet of both North and South Korean descent; Mexico’s most famous detective novelist (Paco Ignacio Taibo II), and several debut novelists. The selected titles explore the wide-ranging implications of cultural identity, and include a novel about the life of a Vietnamese family in America observed through the eyes of a child (Lê Thi Diem Thúy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For); a fictional biography of the early 19th Century French-Peruvian workers’-rights activist Flora Tristan and her grandson, painter Paul Gauguin (Mario Vargas Llosa, The Way to Paradise); a historical novel set during the gold rush in New Zealand (Rose Tremain, The Colour); and a collection of short stories about contemporary Japan (Mary Yukari Waters, The Laws of Evening).

The nonfiction Notables include books by Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, whose Living to Tell the Tale is the first installment of a three-volume autobiography; Francois Bizot, the Chair of the Southeast Asian Buddhism Department at the Sorbonne, who gives an account of his imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in The Gate; a Geisha who worked in rural Japan during the 1940s (Masuda Sayo); and an aboriginal artist who has sat in Australia’s Parliament (Wenten Rubjuntja). Other books on the list explore, among other topics, the dangers that threaten to tear apart Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest nation (Theodore Friend, Indonesian Destinies); the meeting between representatives of the American Gilded Age and early 19th Century Japanese eccentrics (Christopher Benfey, The Great Wave); the life of Eadweard Muybridge, who paved the way for motion pictures with his invention of high-speed photography and changed America’s view of its western frontier (Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows); and the costumes of the Manchu empire, the last great Chinese dynasty (John E. Vollmer, Ruling from the Dragon Throne).

ABOUT PACIFIC RIM VOICES AND THE KIRIYAMA PRIZE: The Kiriyama Prize in fiction and nonfiction, and its accompanying list of Notable Titles, are presented annually in recognition of outstanding books that promote greater understanding of and among the nations of the Pacific Rim (East and Southeast Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, the United States, and the Pacific-bordering nations of Latin America) and of the South Asian subcontinent. The Prize’s sponsor is Pacific Rim Voices, which continues to develop a family of projects celebrating literature from and about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. Interviews with authors and critics, capsule reviews, and a roundup of relevant news and events are all featured in the free newsletter WaterBridge Review www.waterbridgereview.org, available online and by email upon request. And, recognizing the importance of nurturing among young people an appreciation and respect for other cultures, Pacific Rim Voices also sponsors www.PaperTigers.org, a website offering a lively, colorful presentation of children’s and young adults’ books and featuring reviews, interviews, and a virtual gallery of picture book illustrations.

For more information about the 2004 Kiriyama Prize Winners, Finalists, and Notable List, visit www.kiriyamaprize.org or call Jeannine Cuevas, Prize Manager at (415) 777-1628.

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