Australia-Asian Literary Award

I am not a great fan of book prizes. But then, I am not a great fan of prizes of any sort. (Huzir say that no one is, until they win one themselves.) However, when I received the following notice it caught my eye for some reason. It was not the prize money -- AUD$110,000 is nothing to scoff at. It seemed a bit more straight forward, unlike the circus act the Man Booker Asia turned out to be. (This could also become one, if they are not careful.)

Asia (for the Award) includes these countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (China), Macau (China), Tibet (China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor Leste (East Timor) and Vietnam. (West Asia still not included. Why?)
You can read the rules and get the entry forms here.
The closing date is 31^st May 2008. (The media statement is reproduced below.)

PREMIER;
MINISTERFOR CULTURE AND THE ARTS
JOINTMEDIA STATEMENT

16/4/08

Australia and Asia's richest literary award launched.

The richest literary award in Australia and Asia has been launched by Premier Alan Carpenter.

Mr Carpenter said the inaugural Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, worth $110,000, had the power to excite and expand the State's cultural horizons.

"This is a very exciting award that will re-ignite the importance and profile of literature in WA," Mr Carpenter said.

"A prize of this value will draw the best to WA and help fulfil our vision of providing new opportunities for Western Australians."

Culture and Arts Minister Sheila McHale said the award was part of the Carpenter Government's exciting $73million 'Ignite!' package, the biggest single State Government arts funding injection designed to transform literature, dance, theatre, music and visual arts.

"As part of our dynamic 'Ignite!' initiative, the literary award recognises the importance literature plays in our lives," Ms McHale said.

"WA is no longer a small player in the Australia-Asia region and the award will further expand cultural boundaries."

The Minister said the award is open to any book-length work of literary fiction published in print or electronically - something recognising the increasing predominance of electronic media, such as online and mobile phone formats.

The judging panel will consist of three renowned authors and literary experts drawn from some of the nominating countries. They include Pakistani born and multi-award winning author, Kamila Shamsie, author of 'Kartography' and 'Broken Verses' and Sri Lankan born, Hong Kong based columnist and founder of the 'Asia Literary Review', Nury Vittachi.

"This award is a fabulous vote of confidence which I know will kick-start a writing revolution," Mr Vittachi said.

"By embracing the area in which we live, and opening up this award outside Australia, we recognize the rich cultural heritage of Asia and the links our countries can create, on more than an economic basis."

The $110,000 prize makes the award the richest in the nation. Where the winning entry has been translated into English, the author will receive $88,000 and the translator $22,000.

The award is open to works written by an author resident in Australia or Asia, or which are primarily set in Australia or an Asian country. Works must have been either written in, or translated into English and published in the preceding year.

Entries for the award are now open and will close on May 31, 2008. Forms can be downloaded from the Department of Culture and the Arts website http://www.dca.wa.gov.au

Media contacts: Premier's office: Guy Houston 9222 9475 or 0411 742 692

Culture and the Arts Minister's office: Andrew Smith 9213 6900 or 0408 176 839

You can subscribe to have media releases emailed automatically from the Government's website: http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au

Book review by a guest writer

Review of Latif Kamaluddin's Lazy Lamas and Voodoo Genitalia, Prayala, 2006

by

Guest Writer: Shankaran Nambiar

Latif Kamaluddin's Lazy Lamas and Voodoo Genitalia is an exciting and provocative collection of poems that attempts to tease and disturb the reader. With this volume, Kamaluddin effortlessly establishes himself as the most outstanding poet in Malaysia who attempts to explore the limits of language and the mystical edges of religion.

His "Cosmic Interview" raises the question of "why when and how/ did the individual/ self experience separation/ from the Universal Self". Only to be answered with a terse, "... if I know". This is followed by some blank space, framed by the line "END OF INTERVIEW." This poem is at once an exploration in religion in its most mystical sense, as well as a play of space and silence. Kamaluddin could have noted that the interview had ended immediately after the answer to the question was delivered, rather he chose to permit space to pervade between the answer and his declaration that the interview had ended. This serves only to highlight the silence that follows something for which no ready answer can be given. In this sense, Kamaluddin equates space (with no words) with silence.

This play of space as silence finds expression in an untitled poem of his where on one side of the page one finds the lines "god/must/be /liberated" juxtaposed against the lines "man/must/be/ re-created". Both of these lines, arranged as columns, are separated by a wide gap, or a breadth of space, that denotes the divide between man and God. Reading this poem, it is clear that Kamaluddin does more than seek to stress the unbridgeable gap between man and God. He also points out that God is a linguistic contraption of which we must be freed, and in so doing we take upon ourselves the task of liberating God from our preconceptions of Him, however we may conceive of Him. This process of "liberating god" or our linguistic understanding of God, Kamaluddin declares, results in man being re-created. But that, indeed, is a long process that in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions could take lifetimes of effort. It is an effort that needs great patience; and if we do not have the patience to wait without any demand, it could be akin to the feeling of constipation. And that explains why Kamaluddin rather irreverently announces at the close: "LET US ALL THEN GET CONSTIPATED."

We have come to be accustomed to waiting for actions that are result-oriented. Waiting in the spiritual sense is quite the opposite; it is a waiting that calls for the attitude "Thy will be done". Such waiting consequently implies waiting outside the boundaries of time. Kamaluddin’s concern with waiting of that nature comes to the fore again in his "Memogramme". He notes that "You are/dead now/and/I/ am unavailable/" and then goes on to ask, "so/where does/that leave/longing?" The context that he poses here is one where Nietzsche's God is dead and the seeker is unavailable. In a situation such as this what does longing mean, if one can at all long for the Divine under such circumstances? The irony that Kamaluddin hints at is mischievous when one notes that the title of this poem suggests the common memo that is circulated in offices, which requires results of a tangible form, not some longing that needs divine fervour. Again, a memo cannot function in the presence of the death of a person and the absence of another, a distinction that is absolutely at odds with a religious life.

Kamaluddin's untitled 'box' poem appears, at first sight, like word play. It seems to be the careful arrangement of words that takes the form of a square. The line on top reads, "every body has" and it turns down in clockwise direction to go on to "a box no one", leading on to "goes there", finally ending with "no one knows". If read in the natural sequence of a square, it would read: "every body has/a box no one/ goes there/ no one knows." One could, and is tempted to, read differently. Perhaps Kamaluddin is suggesting that everyone has a 'box', to which no one goes, and of which no one knows. If the reader were to take the trouble to develop the right metaphors, this poem can elicit tremendous insights; and in this sense he wants us to take a more intellectual posture towards his poems. Whatever it is that one takes a 'box' to suggest, at its core it is empty. And one cannot but fail to note that the "void" is a theme that recurs in his poetry in different ways, as the absence of person, as the death of God, as a concept that begs to be stripped of its linguistic trappings.

As can only be fitting for a collection of poems that is religious in a rebellious fashion and which invites linguistic de- and re-construction, Kamaluddin's last poem, entitled "Finalaudit", has just three lines, "going/ going/ gone". And these three words, which are so reminiscent of the Buddhist exhort to go beyond the temporal world, seem to be hiss reminder that urges us to go beyond the apparent as suggested by language and grammar.

In this volume Kamaluddin, perhaps, expresses concerns that should be central to one's life: to explore the foundation of time and space, to delve into solidity and embrace the void, to explore the interplay of word and silence; and more than anything else, to seek liberation from the strictures of language, grammar, form and sound. Kamaluddin in his slim and shocking volume, extends a formidable invitation to the reader.

(Silverfish Books will be giving away free copies of this book to anyone who comes to the bookshop and is interested -- please ask for one. Since we have only limited copies, it will have to be on a, strictly, first come first served basis. We will not take reservations or bookings.)