Kiriyama Award Honors API Authors
By Rashmi Nijagal

Gathering writers together to share their uncommon experiences while holding ties to a common region of the world, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize culminates its fourth year this Saturday with the announcement of non-fiction and fiction winners at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The two winners will share a $30,000 prize.

Co-sponsored by the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Foundation and by the University of San Francisco’s Center for the Pacific Rim, the Kiriyama entered its fourth year with the most entries it has ever received.

“The response has been amazing, really,” Jeanine Cuevas, Project Coordinator of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize said. “Before we started in 1996, we were told that we would be lucky if we got 30 book entries, but we actually received over 100. This year, we have received over 275 entries. The response to the Kiriyama has clearly grown.”

As response to the awards grows, one of its primary goals has been to increase awareness in the literary community of the many writers and voices from countries in the Pacific Rim such as China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Taiwan. The prize also extends into Australia, New Zealand, and Micronesia to name a few. The close proximity of these nations, however, does not diminish the writers’ differences in experience.

“When this prize was first established, the founders were looking for something that spoke across international borders,” Patrick Lloyd Hatcher, chair of the Kiriyama’s nonfiction panel, said. “They wanted to set a foundation as a better arena for Pacific people to live in. It is as if the Kiriyama were a Nobel Prize for literature and for peace.”

The Kiriyama Awards seeks to increase awareness of the writing of the Pacific Rim not only in that region, but in Western countries as well where, up until quite recently, the focus on Eurocentric literature gave little importance to the voices of other regions around the world. In addition, large publishers who have more money to pay their writers and to promote books have picked up many of the writers that the West eventually does hear about. Those published by smaller publishers stand very little chance of being heard. The Kiriyama’s desire is to maintain a level playing field where writers from both large and small publishers can share their experiences with an equal reception. And while the Kiriyama has only given the prize to a writer from a larger publishing house during the past three years, its commitment to those writers who are less visible is undeterred.

“The prize certainly has to do with discovering and introducing new voices from other parts of the world into America,” Gail Tsukiyama chair of the Kiriyama’s fiction panel, said. “It wasn’t until Amy Tan wrote The Joy Luck Club that it really opened the doors for Pacific writers to accomplish an economically viable form of writing. You began to see more Asian American writers being published. The thing about this prize is that it opens doors even wider -- beyond the Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim voices are everywhere and if it weren’t for the prize, we wouldn’t hear these voices.”

With such an array of writers to choose from, there can be no doubt that the task of picking the two winners is a difficult one. What are the qualities that the judges are looking for in the winning entry of the Kiriyama Prize?

“It isn’t that I look for a book that exudes some sort of Pacific Rim-ness,” Tsukiyama said. “Rather, I look for good writing. In novel writing in general, many stories are about the same things such as love or family. But sometimes, someone steps up and does it in a way I haven’t seen before and that’s what I look for.”

Hatcher agrees that the writing itself can be more important than the subject matter. “Obviously, we (the panel) wouldn’t look very wise if we only chose books on Korea for example. At the same time, we want the prize to be about something that reaches out to a large number of people and we want our prizewinners to be of a very high quality. So, really, when choosing a winner, it is a balancing act between accessibility and quality.”

The growth in number and in popularity of Asian and Asian American writing today was nearly unimaginable 10 to 15 years ago. Along with its own growth in the number of entries it receives each year, the Kiriyama has grown in importance in the literary world, and now occupies a position as one of the foremost promoters of Asian and Asian American writing.

“We want to establish it as one of the premier book prizes, on the level of the Booker and the National Book Award,” Barbara Bundy, Executive Director of the University of San Francisco’s Center for the Pacific Rim, said. “We think it has the possibility to promote greater understanding and inseminate important idea through writing. For that to happen, the bottom line is, we want to get these books into the readers’ hands.”

The Kiriyama also has its eye on the future of Asian writing. It is clear that for Asian writing to continue its rise in importance, the evolution must be maintained.

“To be taken seriously as a writer is very important now for the next generation so that we can move beyond this idea of Asian-ness,” Tsukiyama added. “We are Asians and we are writers. Does it make it any less of a Pacific Rim voice if the books are not about our ancestry? Now is the time to take it further or else we become what everyone thinks we are. What better place than the Kiriyama Prize, an award that allows this to happen.”

The Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize Award Ceremony will be broadcast live from 10 a.m. to noon on Sedge Thomson’s West Coast Live. For tickets, call WCL at 415-664-9500. Tickets are $12 in advance or $14 at the door. Listen to the live broadcast on KALW 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area.