Australia's richest book prize list out

Booker Prize winner JM Coetzee is one of 12 authors in the running for Australia's
richest book prize.
Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year has been nominated for the inaugural $110,000
Australia-Asia Literary Award, announced by former West Australian premier Alan
Carpenter last year.
Janet Turner Hospital's Orpheus Lost is on the list, along with David Malouf's The
Complete Stories and Haruki Murakami's novel After Dark.
Two former Man Booker Prize contenders were also selected from the 111 entrants:
Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist was the 2007 Man Booker short list and
Michelle de Krester's The Lost Dog was on this year's long list.
Two novels considered for the 2008 Miles Franklin Award, Rodney Hall's Love without
Hope and Alex Miller's Landscape of Farewell are also on the list.
The award is open to any book-length work published electronically or in print.
Authors must either reside in Australia or Asia or set their work in Australia or an
Asian country, either write or have their works translated into English and have
been published in the last year.
A panel of three judges - Melbourne literary critic Peter Craven, Pakistani-born
author Kamila Shamsie and Hong Kong based founder of the Asia Literary Review Nury
Vittachi - will narrow the list to six by October 30.
West Australian poet and academic Dennis Haskell says the list contains some real
surprises.
"I think it's striking how many Australian books are on the long list," said Prof
Haskell, long-running editor of Westerly magazine.
"Given it's an Australia-Asia award, there are quite a few books published in Asia,
especially in India, of course. I might have expected quite a lot of Indian books
there."
Several emerging writers both from Australia and India have not been recognised, he
said.
"It does seem striking that in particular Steven Carroll's novel The Time We Have
Taken, which won the regional section of the commonwealth prize and went on to win
the Miles Franklin prize, isn't on the long list," Prof Haskell said.
"Steven Conte's book The Zookeeper's War won the Prime Minister's Prize ... it's a
first novel so it's a striking achievement.
"It's not on the list, and that's a surprise."
Indian writers Aravind Adiga, who this week won the 2008 Man Booker prize, and
Amitav Gosh, who wrote Sea of Poppies, which made this year's Booker shortlist,
would have been worthy entrants, Prof Haskell said.
"Gail Jones' Sorry is a book that has been short-listed all over the place. I had
mixed feelings about it to be honest, but it wasn't listed this year.
"A novel that's very good and got terrific reviews but didn't make any shortlists
anywhere is Graeme Kinross-Smith's Long Afternoon of the World.
"I'm a bit surprised that hasn't got in. That's an Australian novel," Prof Haskell
said.