Asian American Literary Award

The Asian American Literary Awards have been presented annually since 1998, to recognize Asian American writers for excellence in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, memoirs, stage plays and screenplays. The award recipients are determined by a national panel of judges, who are selected on the basis of expertise in a literary genre or experience in academic environments relevent to Asian American literature. To qualify for the awards, a work must have been written by an individual of Asian American descent, living in the United States and have been published originally in English during the calendar year preceding the award year. For more information, click on the Asian American Literary Award page on Wikipedia.

The titles in this list are “hotlinked” to the library’s catalog, for all those titles currently owned by the Lincoln City Libraries. For titles not currently owned by our system, please consider requesting them through our Interlibrary Loan service.

Asian American Literary Award Winners — 1998 to 2012

2012
Rahul Mehta
Quarantine

Janine Oshiro
Pier

Roya Hakakian
Assassins of the Turquoise Palace

Thaddeus Rutkowski
Haywire

2011
Yiyun Li
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

Kimiko Hahn
Toxic Flora

Amitava Kumar
A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm, A Bomb

Ed Lin
Snakes Can’t Run: A Mystery *

Karen Tei Yamashita
I Hotel

2010
Paul Yoon
Once the Shore

Minal Hajratwala
Leaving India: My Family’s Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents

Ronaldo V. Wilson
Poems of the Black Object

Jason Koo
Man on Extremely Small Island *

2009
Jhumpa Lahiri
Unaccustomed Earth

Sesshu Foster
World Ball Notebook

Leslie T. Chang
Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

Sonny Mehta — Lifetime Achievement Award

2008
Mohsin Hamid
The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Vijay Prashad
The Darker Nations

Sun Yung Shin
Skirt Full of Black

Ed Lin
This is a Bust! *

David Henry Hwang — Lifetime Achievement Award

2007
Linh Dinh
Borderless Bodies

Amitav Ghosh
Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times

Samrat Upadhyav
The Royal Ghosts

Gene Yuen Yang
American Born Chinese

2006
Jeff Chang
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation

Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Sightseeing

Shanxing Wang
Mad Science in Imperial City

Ed Bok Lee
Real Karaoke People *

Maxine Kingston — Lifetime Achievement Award

2005
Brian Leung
World Famous Love Acts

Suketu Mehta
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Srikanth Reddy
Facts for Visitors

Ishle Yi Park
The Temperature of This Water *

2004
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Nest

Monique Truong
The Book of Salt

Vijay Vaitheeswaran
Power to the People

Patrick Rosal
Uprock, Headspin, Scramble and Dive *

2003
Walter Lew
Treadwinds: Poems and Intermedia Texts

Meera Nair
Video: Stories

Julie Otsuka
When the Emperor Was Divine

Ed Lin
Waylaid *

2002
Alexander Chee
Edinburgh

Luis H. Francia
Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago

Christina Chiu
Troublemaker and Other Saints

Don Lee
Yellow *

2001
Ha Jin
Bridegroom and Other Stories

Eugene Gloria
Drivers at the Short Time Motel: Poems

Akhil Sharma
An Obedient Father

Nick Carbo
Secret Asian Man *

2000
Eric Gamalinda
Zero Gravity

Chang-rae Lee
A Gesture Life

Bino Realuyo
Umbrella Country *

1999
Susan Choi
The Foreign Student

Arthur Size
The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998

1998
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Endocrinology

Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Blu’s Hanging

* — Members’ Choice Award

Originally posted December 2007
Last updated December 2016 sdc