Global literature is nowadays a crazy Darwinian pool, with new talents emerging with wings, old talents sharpening their talons and genes of genres mixing and blurring the lines! The Asian Prize for Fiction came to town as a messiah to announce the gospel of literary excellence of the finest work that emerged from that pool. The Asian Prize for Fiction will stand as a hallmark of literary calibre, celebrating the nuanced and diverse voices that shape the global literary landscape.

This prestigious award not only acknowledges the elegance and depth of storytelling but also brings to the forefront the rich cultural narratives that resonate across continents. The recently announced longlist for the 2023 prize offers a captivating glimpse into the spirited spectrum of contemporary global fiction, showcasing works that traverse the complexities of identity, heritage, and human experience.

This year’s longlist of The Asian Prize for Fiction handpicked the finest talents that emerged wrapped in the bubbles of resplendence from our crazy Darwinian pool. And that too, regardless of whether those are new talents or old talents, using criteria sheerly based on unprecedented talent and the quality of work. Each of these longlisted authors has carefully crafted stories that transcend boundaries, inviting readers into worlds both familiar and exotic.

Our shortlist for the Asian Prize for Fiction is around the corner, so before we see the shortlist, we would like to get to know the longlisted authors better. From emerging voices to seasoned storytellers, each author on this list has earned their place through their exceptional talent and dedication to the craft of storytelling.

V. V. Ganeshananthan (Brotherless Nights)

V. V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night —shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024 and winner of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction— also wrote Love Marriage, longlisted for the Women’s Prize and acclaimed by The Washington Post. Her works have been featured in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. A former VP of the South Asian Journalists Association, she serves on multiple literary boards and teaches at the University of Minnesota. Ganeshananthan co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub.

R. F. Kuang (The Yellow Face)

Rebecca F. Kuang is the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, and Yellowface. She is hailed as a brilliant talent and has been nominated for awards such as Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (Spell of Good Things)

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is an acclaimed novelist whose debut novel was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017. Her follow-up, A Spell of Good Things, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Ayọ̀bámi holds degrees in Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she currently teaches. In 2017, she won The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture. Ayọ̀bámi has written for the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, The Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian (UK), ELLE and others. She has received fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Ledig House, Sinthian Cultural Centre, Hedgebrook, Ox-bow School of Arts, and Ebedi Hills. Her Stay With Me won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and Prix Les Afriques and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize.

Smriti Ravindra (Woman Who Climbed Trees)

Smriti Ravindra holds an MFA in Creative Writing from North Carolina State University. As a dedicated Fulbright scholar, she has conducted an in-depth study of women’s oral storytelling traditions in the Terai region of Nepal, her native homeland. Her diverse body of work includes both fiction and journalism, with pieces published in prestigious outlets across the United States and India. Her debut novel, The Woman Who Climbed Trees, marks a significant milestone in her literary journey.

Arefa Tehsin (Witch in the Peepul Tree)

Arefa Tehsin is the author of numerous fiction and non-fiction books for both children and adults. She contributes to publications like The Indian Express, The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Outlook Money, and TerraGreen. Her book The Chirmi Chasers was shortlisted for the Neev Book Award 2021, while Amra and the Witch was a finalist for the FCCI’s Best Book of the Year Award 2019. Wild in the Backyard earned her a spot on the shortlist for The Hindu Young World-Goodbooks Best Author Award 2017. The Elephant Bird was read at over 3,200 locations in India on International Literacy Day 2016 and has been translated into more than 35 languages. Her book Do Tigers Drink Blood? and 13 Other Mysteries of Nature is being translated into Chinese. Several of her works are used as textbooks in schools across India and Sri Lanka. Iora and the Quest of Five, a fantasy book, was released in the U.S. and U.K. in 2022. Her first adult novel, Witch on the Peepul Tree, was published by HarperCollins in June 2023. Arefa, the daughter of renowned naturalist Dr. Raza H. Tehsin, spent her childhood exploring jungles. She has served as the Honorary Wildlife Warden of Udaipur district and actively promotes nature conservation through her writing.

Jesmyn Ward (Let Us Descend)

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has been honoured with the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She made history as the first woman and Black American to win two National Book Awards for Fiction, for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones(2011). Ward is also the author of Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and resides in Mississippi.

Agnes Chew (Eternal Summer of My Homeland)

Agnes Chew is the author of Eternal Summer of My Homeland (Epigram Books, 2023), a national bestseller in Singapore and longlisted for The Asian Prize for Fiction 2023, and the essay collection The Desire for Elsewhere (Math Paper Press, 2016). Her short fiction, featured in Granta, Necessary Fiction, and Wildness, won the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia). She has been supported by the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Tin House, and Nuoren Voiman Liiton. Agnes holds a Master’s in International Development from the London School of Economics, where she received the Mayling Birney Prize for her dissertation on inequality and societal well-being in Singapore, published in the Singapore Policy Journal. Born and raised in Singapore, she now resides in Germany.

Mica De Leon (Love on the Second Read)

Mica De Leon is a Filipino author renowned for her swoony romantic comedies and epic science fiction and fantasy novels. She has received the prestigious Don Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature twice, in 2019 and 2022, for her insightful essays on topics such as romance, feminism, history, fantasy, and the Filipino identity, particularly in the context of the aftermath of Martial Law and the 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines. Mica enjoys leisurely walks on the beach, is an avid lover of dogs and cats, and has a deep appreciation for both swoon-worthy, spicy romance novels and epic SFF literature.

Mrinalini Harchandrai (Rescuing a River Breeze)

Mrinalini Harchandrai is the acclaimed author of A Bombay in My Beat, a celebrated collection of poetry. Her poem won first prize in The Barre (2017), and she was a finalist for the Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize in 2019. Her as-yet-unpublished novel manuscript was recognized as a Notable Entry for the Disquiet International Literary Prize in 2019. Mrinalini’s short stories have been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2018 and chosen as a Top Pick by Juggernaut Books, India, the same year. Her work has been featured in The Brave New World of Goan Writing 2018 and RLFPA Editions’ Best Indian Poetry 2018 and is showcased across various literary platforms.

Safinah Danish Elahi (The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon)

Safinah Danish Elahi is a multifaceted creative talent who is distinguished as a poet, writer, and qualified lawyer. She is also the founder of an independent publishing house in Pakistan. Her critically acclaimed poetry collection has garnered significant praise for its depth and lyrical beauty. One of her novels has achieved the distinction of being commissioned for a television adaptation. Safinah was honoured with a place at the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop Fall Residency in 2022, reflecting her standing in the literary community. She frequently serves on judging panels for various writing competitions across Pakistan, contributing her expertise.

Now that you know the art and the artists, you can start reading the amazing works of those authors and enjoy the exquisite storytelling that takes you to the deepest depths of the human imagination possible. And try to guess who from the aforementioned distinguished list makes the way into the shortlist of The Asian Prize for Fiction. And mark June 30, 2024, on your calendars as the Asian Prize for Fiction shortlist will be announced on June 30, 2024 with a fanfare fit for royalty, with trumpets and all.

By Pathum Punchihewa