Filipino author Miguel Syjuco has won the US$10,000 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Ilustrado.
A panel of three internationally respected authors and literary judges, led by Adrienne Clarkson, the Hong Kong-born former governor general of Canada, selected from a shortlist of five books the story of a young Filipino caught in a scandal that permeates Philippine history.
The award was made last night at a dinner at the Peninsula hotel.
In a statement, Clarkson and fellow judges Nicholas Jose, writer, scholar and former cultural counsellor at the Australian embassy in Beijing, and Pankaj Mishra, the acclaimed Indian writer and thinker, said: 'The shortlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize testifies to the great vitality of the novel in Asian societies undergoing hectic and unexpected transformations.
'In the end, we had to choose, and Ilustrado seems to us to possess formal ambition, linguistic inventiveness and sociopolitical insight in the most satisfying measure.
'Brilliantly conceived and stylishly executed, it covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy and effervescent with humour.'
