Murakami and Mortenson Win Kiriyama Prize

Haruki Murakami, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are the winners of the 2007 Kiriyama Prize, Pacific Rim voices announced today. The prize, which celebrates literature that contributes to greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia, comes with a $30,000 cash prize to be split among the winners.

Japanese literary icon Murakami won in the fiction category with his book of short stories, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, beating out The Inheritance of Loss, by Kirin Desai, Stick Out Your Tongue, by Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew, Certainty, by Madeleine Thien and Behold the Many, by Lois-Ann Yamanaka.

"[Murakami] has mastered the techniques and perspectives of major 20th century Western fiction," said NPR's Alan Cheuse, one of the fiction judges, "turned all of it toward the elucidation of the life of his own culture, and produced stories that have the attractive quality of seeming delightfully familiar and yet pleasingly strange at the same time."

Meanwhile, Mortenson Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace?One School at a Time, which he co-wrote with journalist Relin, is the nonfiction winner, beating out The Haiku Apprentice, by Abigail Friedman, Blonde Indian, by Ernestine Hayes, Tigers in Red Weather, by Ruth Padel and Chinese Lessons, by William Pomfret.

"Although our cynical world has an aversion to saints, we need heroes more than ever," said Seattle-based bookseller and nonfiction judge Janet Brown. "Greg Mortenson, through the work he has chosen, makes it possible for isolated and ignored villagers to show their heroism, which is revealed in a book filled with high adventure and hope."

In addition to announcing the winners of the Kiriyama Prize, Pacific Rim Voices announced the list of seven fiction and 12 nonfiction books honored as 2007 Kiriyama Prize Notable Books. The full list is below.

2007 Kiriyama Prize Notable Books Fiction:
Cellophane, by Marie Arana
The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery
Plum Wine, by Angela Davis-Gardener
White Ghost Girls, by Alice Greenway
Astral Alibi, by Prabhu Manjiri
Night of Sorrows, by Frances Sherwood
The Space Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar

2007 Kiriyama Prize Notable Books Nonfiction:
Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita?The Artist Caught Between East and West, by Phyllis Birnbaum
Tiger of the Snows: Tenzing Norgay, The Boy Whose Dream Was Everest, by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Ed Young
Iz: Voice of the People, by Rick Carroll
The Weathermakers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, by Tim Flannery
Wild Borneo: The Wildlife and Scenery of Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan, by Nick Garbutt and J. Cede Prudente
Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times, by Amitav Ghosh
Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793-1841, by Donald Keene
The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000 BC-AD 2000, by Julia Lovell
Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World, by Margaret MacMillan
Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother, by Sonia Nozario
Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend, by Christopher Ross
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, by John Wood