A FORMER winner of Myanmar’s National Literary Award has become one of five authors shortlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize for unpublished works in the English Language.

Nu Nu Yi (Inwa) was nominated in July from among 243 submissions as one of 23 contenders for the US$10,000 award, which will be announced at a ceremony in Hong Kong on November 10.

Her nominated novel, Smile as They Bow, follows the life of Daisy James, an insecure transvestite medium who is afraid of losing his partner Min Min to a woman named Pan Hmon. The story is set against Myanmar’s most famous nat (spirit) festival, which occurs every year in Taungbyone north of Mandalay.

“The organisers (of the prize) have informed me that they have sent to me an invitation letter to attend the awards ceremony on November 10 in Hong Kong,” Nu Nu Yi, who won the National Literary Award in 1993, told The Myanmar Times on Thursday.

“I’m not expecting to win the award but I would like to represent my country at the ceremony. It has more to do with the country’s stature than my own personal achievement,” she said.

She said her achievement in making the shortlist was “not bad” especially since one writer she admired – China’s Mo Yan – was among the original 23 nominees for his book Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out but did not make the cut for final five.

Nu Nu Yi’s novel was originally published in the Myanmar language in the monthly magazine Shwe Amute as a serial from March 2006 to February 2007.
An American freelance writer, Alfred Birnbaum, translated the book into English earlier this year.

Smile as They Bow is Nu Nu Yi’s first translated novel.
However, some of her short stories have been translated into Japanese and English.

Nu Nu Yi has written 16 novels and six collections of short stories in her 20-year career.

Hyperion publishing house in New York has agreed to publish her novel in English at a later date.

The other novels that made the shortlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize are Wolf Totem by retired Chinese academic Jiang Rong, Soledad’s Sister by Filipino author Jose Dalisay Jr, Habit of a Foreign Sky by Chinese-Indonesian writer Xu Xi and Families at Home by Indian author Reeti Gadekar.