Su’s novel, “The Boat to Redemption” is about a womanizing Party official who castrates himself after being banished to a river barge with his young son just after the tumultuous Cultural Revolution. It won the Man Asian Literary prize, the regional equivalent of London’s Man Booker prize.

“I feel this prize is independently judged,” Su told Reuters.

“So it’s important to me because I’m a writer who is not famous for winning prizes. I’m more famous for not winning prizes,” added the writer whose dark, provocative works are popular but have sometimes put him at odds with the authorities.

The panel of three judges, including Indian writer Pankaj Mishra and Irish writer Colm Toibin, described Su’s novel as a picaresque, political fable as well as “a parable about the journeys we take in our lives, the distance between the boat of our desires and the dry land of our achievement.”

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: literature, Su Tong, writers
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China, experts agree, is the nation of the future; its immense population, its acrobatic blend of totalitarian controls and booming fre enterprise, and the commercial and intellectual success its emigrants have enjoyed in nation from Malaysia to the United States all augur impending global dominance. In literature however, the Chinese mainland, as far as Western ears go, is pretty quiet.

Read the full review. A Washington Post review of Mo’s book is here. A review of Su’s book in the Independent is here.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2005. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book reviews, mo yan, Su Tong
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