Two Filipino Writers Make It To 2008 Man Asian Shortlist

Filipino writers Miguel Syjuco and Alfred Yuson made it to the shortlist of this year's Man Asian Literary Prize.

Syjuco's and Yuson's novels are Ilustrado and The Music Child, respectively.

The other finalists are Kavery Nambisan for The Story that Must Not be Told, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi for Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, and Yu Hua for Brothers.

Filipino writers Ian Rosales Casocot (Sugar Land) and Lakambini Sitoy (Sweet Haven) made it to the longlist.

The winner will be announced on Nov. 13 in Hong Kong.

Here are some information about Syjuco and Yuson taken from the Man Asian Prize's Web site.


Miguel Syjuco was born in Manila, Philippines in 1976. His fiction and poetry have appeared in national publications and anthologies. He co-founded and edited an online publication, Localvibe.com. He has written poetry, fiction and journalism for national and international publications. The manuscript of his debut novel, Ilustrado, has just been awarded the Grand Prize at the Palanca Awards. Ilustrado begins with Crispin Salvador, lion of Philippine letters, dead in the Hudson River. His acolyte Miguel investigates the author's demise and the disappearance of a manuscript about the corruption behind rich Filipino families. To understand the death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvador's trajectory via his poetry, stories, interviews, novels, polemics and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic: a family saga of four generations tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, Americans and Filipinos themselves. Finally, the story twists, belonging to young Miguel as much as his lost mentor.


Alfred A. Yuson has authored 22 books, including two novels as well as short fiction, poetry and essay collections. He contributes a weekly culture column to The Philippine Star, and a fortnightly column to the weekly Philippine Graphic magazine. He teaches fiction and poetry in Ateneo de Manila University, where he held the Henry Lee Irwin Professorial Chair. The Music Child tells about an American journalist undergoes strange experiences in a southern island in the Philippines. He stumbles into a remote tribe of hair-string fiddlers, and encounters a half-breed child with the magical gift of song. Violence intrudes, forcing him to flee. Many years later, he encounters the "music child" again, this time as a grown man who has found a female partner with an equally prodigious gift.