Penguin China Launches Ambitious Writing Contest

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 7/24/2008 8:07:00 AM

Penguin's three-year-old outpost in China has established a new literary prize which it's dubbed “The Next – A Search for the New Face of Chinese Literature." Run in coordination with Changjiang Art & Literature Publishing House, the YA journal Top Novel and the Web sites Qidan.com and Sina.com, "The Next" offers an attractive haul for the potential winner: a prize of $146,000 in addition to a publishing contract, an advance and the payment of any outstanding educational debts. 

Through the contest, which Penguin described as an "Apprentice-style competition," authors can submit their manuscripts by September 2008 in order to be considered by the judges, a collection of authors and critics, who will select a shortlist of 36 manuscripts; those submissions will then be opened up to the Chinese public, which will vote on the works, until a winner is selected in April 2009.

Speaking to the competition, Penguin CEO John Makinson said the house is "committed to supporting up-and-coming writers around the world, whether they are from Shanghai or San Francisco. We very much look forward to reading 'the Next' sensation to come out of China’s burgeoning literary scene.”