I just got word of a very interesting new lit prize for Asian novelists. The Man Asian Literary Prize is the latest effort to promote Asian lit beyond the region; it offers a prize of $10,000 for the winning writer and $3,000 for the winning translator.

So if you are Asian (both a resident and a citizen) and have a novel that has yet to be published in English, you can qualify by submitting an English manuscript before the end of March. Check out the site for more details.

The prize is sponsored by an investment company called the Man Group and the Hong Kong International Literary Festival.

If you're thinking of entering the contest but don't have an English translation of your novel, drop us a line. If we like what you've written, we may be able to help you out. We deal primarily in Japanese, but we can arrange readers for Chinese, Korean and several Southeast Asian languages as well.