The longlist for the Australia-Asia Literary Award, formerly the West Australian Premier's Literary Award, has been announced.

The award, which at $110,000 is Australia's richest, is open to any book-length work published in print or electronically in the previous year, with the author residing in Australia or Asia, or setting their work in either continent.

The 12 longlisted titles selected from 111 entrants are:

    * Diary of a Bad Year (J M Coetzee, Text)
    * Orpheus Lost (Janette Turner Hospital, HarperPerennial)
    * The Complete Stories (David Malouf, Vintage)
    * After Dark (Haruki Murakami, Random House)
    * The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Hoshin Hamid, Penguin)
    * The Lost Dog (Michelle de Kretser, A&U)
    * Love Without Hope (Rodney Hall, Picador)
    * Landscape of Farewell (Alex Miller, A&U)
    * The Trout Opera (Matthew Condon, Vintage)
    * Blood Kin (Ceridwen Dovey, Atlantic Books)
    * Burning In (Mireille Juchau, Giramondo)
    * Animal's People (Indra Sinha, Pocket Books).

Some of the longlisted authors have already been up for major awards. Rodney Hall's Love Without Hope and Alex Miller's Landscape of Farewell were both considered for the 2008 Miles Franklin award. J M Coetzee is a previous winner of the Booker prize; and Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Michelle de Kretser's The Lost Dog were also Man Booker contenders in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

The judging panel consists of Melbourne literary critic Peter Craven, Pakistani-born author Kamila Shamsie and Hong Kong-based founder of the Asia Literary Review Nury Vittachi.

The shortlist will be announced on October 30 and the winner announced 21 November.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/10/09898/

This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: alex miller, ceridwen dovey, david malouf, haruki murakami, indra sinha, j m coetzee, janette turner hospital, kamila shamsie, Matthew Condon, michelle de kretser, mireille juchau, moshin hamid, nury vittachi, rodney hall