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ROC writer wins 2015 Newman Prize

2014-09-23

Taiwan novelist and screenwriter Chu Tien-wen is winner of the fourth Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, according to award organizer University of Oklahoma.

The OU Institute for U.S.-China Issues said Chu beat out four exceptionally talented and accomplished nominees from Malaysia and mainland China to become the first female winner and second Taiwan recipient after Yang Mu.

Chu will receive US$10,000, a commemorative plaque and a bronze medallion during an academic symposium scheduled for March 2015 at the university.

“It is a testament to Chu’s remarkable literary skills that she emerged as the winner after four rounds of positive elimination voting,” said Peter Hays Gries, director of the OU institute.

Chu was nominated by Margaret Hillenbrand—associate professor of Modern Chinese from Oxford University—for “Fin-de-Siecle Splendor,” a work that “has elevated the Chinese short story to new heights,” according to the institution.

“Chu is a multifaceted cultural figure, a novelist, screenwriter and essayist who excels at each of those different forms,” Hillenbrand said. “Texture, fragrance, color and taste leap out from her uncommonly crafted prose with such force that they suck the reader into the text in ways not usually associated with the short-story form.”

Born in 1956 to a prominent literary family in Taipei, Chu began her writing career during high school, winning critical acclaim with novels and short stories. Her later collaboration with award-winning director Hou Hsiao-hsien in films such as “City of Sadness,” “The Puppetmaster” and “Millennium Mambo” helped turn Taiwan’s New Cinema movement into a global brand.

Launched in 2009, the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature is awarded biennially in recognition of outstanding achievement in prose or poetry that best captures the human condition.


Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=221925&CtNode=413)