New Hong Kong book prize set up to recognise Asian writers

A new book prize is being created in Hong Kong aimed at breaking the cultural hegemony of Western awards.

The World Readers' Award seeks to celebrate the works of authors barred from existing major prizes, Nury Vittachi, chairman of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association, said.

The Man Booker Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, the book industry's top events, had restrictions unfavourable to Asian authors, he said. The former is limited to works published in the United Kingdom, while the Pulitzer is only for authors with American passports.

The restrictions mean writers from many parts of the world are underrepresented, which Vittachi wants to rectify.

With the launch of the prize - which he nicknamed "the Golden Egg" as it will be presented in the Charles K. Kao Auditorium, an egg-shaped structure in the Science Park - Vittachi also wants to promote books that offer a more accurate description of the world. "Among the many princesses in children's books, 99 per cent have golden or light-coloured hair … only one is a black-haired princess," he said. "However, 90 per cent of the world has dark hair."

In the first year of the awards, only English-language published works will be eligible. "To start with, the books will need to be in English, otherwise we would have to have judges who could read huge numbers of different languages," he said. "But we will also accept books which have been translated into English from any other language."