The five finalists for the 2027 prize are:
Fang Fang 方方: Nominated by Michael Berry, University of California, Los Angeles
Su Tong 苏童: Nominated by Wang Yao 王尧, Soochow University
Wu Ming-Yi 吳明益: Nominated by Darryl Sterk 石岱崙, Lingnan University
Priest: Nominated by Heather Inwood, University of Cambridge
Zhang Yueran 张悦然: Nominated by Dylan Levi King
Wu Ming-Yi 吳明益 is a prominent Taiwanese novelist, essayist, artist, and nature writer and serves as Professor in the Department of Sinophone Literatures at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan. His fiction brings ecological consciousness, natural history, colonial memory, and the multilingual experience of Taiwan into conversation with global questions of technology, environmental change, and human relationships with the nonhuman world. His major novels include The Man with the Compound Eyes《複眼人》, The Stolen Bicycle《單車失竊記》, and his most recent novel, The Sea Breeze Club《海風酒店》. Wu was nominated by his translator Darryl Sterk, Associate Professor in the Department of Translation at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
About the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature
Established through the generosity of Harold J. and Ruth Newman, the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature is administered by the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for US-China Issues. The Newmans’ endowment for a chair at OU helped make possible the creation of the Institute and its programs promoting deeper cultural understanding between the United States and the Chinese-speaking world. Since its establishment, the Newman Prize has recognized many of the most significant voices in contemporary Chinese-language literature. Past laureates include Mo Yan, who subsequently received the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as Han Shaogong, Yang Mu, Chu T’ien-wen, Wang Anyi, Xi Xi, Yan Lianke, Chang Kuei-hsing, and Ling Yü. Through the Newman Prize, the Chinese Literature Translation Archive, Chinese Literature and Thought Today, and related literary and cultural initiatives, the University of Oklahoma has become an important international center for the study, translation, and celebration of Chinese literature.
