The story of a playboy Communist party official who castrates himself after he is banished to live on a river barge has won celebrated Chinese author Su Tong the Man Asian Literary Prize.
Su, by far the best known of the five shortlisted authors, is the second Chinese writer to win the three-year-old prize, which is worth $10,000 (£6,000). Judges, including the authors Colm Tóibín and Pankaj Mishra, said in a joint statement that his winning title, The Boat to Redemption, was “a picaresque novel of immense charm”.
The Man Asian award goes to an “Asian” novel unpublished in English, with the intention of bringing “exciting new Asian authors to the attention of the world literary community”. Its definition of Asian excludes countries such as Iran, Turkey and all the central Asian Stans.