Su Tong is one of 13 writers whose work has been nominated for the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. This is different to the Booker prize, being offered only every two years and is worth £6O,OOO. It is awarded for a writer's achievement in fiction. The winner will be announced at the Sydney Writer's Festival (http://www.swf.org.au/) 18 May and celebrated in London 28 June. The winner in 2009 was Alice Munro.

This was my first experience of Su Tong and following on from James Kelman it was another challenging read. The Boat to Redemption won the Man Asia Literary Prize in 2009. The story is set in Maosit China where our "hero" Dongliang's family has fallen from grace. Dongliang's father, Secretary Ku, was once revered as the lost son of a beautiful communist activist and martyr, on the strength of ...wait for it....a fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom. Yes, this is an absurd novel. Dongliang's father did not let fame go to his head - rather to his nether regions - which lands the family in trouble and strife. The Party investigates the birthmark further, its authenticity is questioned and the the family is disgraced. Ku leaves Milltown and joins the raggle taggle crew of boat people on the barges which take goods up and down the river. Dongliang a recalcitrant teenager, joins his father and becomes known as Kongpi - a nickname for his lost status - meaning empty fart. Kongpi, like all teenage boys, is at once obsessed and mortified by his burgeoning sexuality. He is portrayed as a pathetic creature, a victim of his raging hormones which range from desperate unrequited longing to full-on violence.

This is not an easy novel to read - an attempted castration with scissors is perhaps one of the more challenging segments. Kongpi is the kind of anti-hero you find yourself saying "Oh God no, don't do that or don't go there....". At times the storyline is key-stone cop-esque - if that is a phrase - lurching from one incident to the next like a drunken sailor. At times I wondered if the translation let it down but Howard Goldblatt has excellent credentials...It is the first time I have finished a book and seriously turned the pages several times in disbelief that it had ended so suddenly..."You're kidding, " I thought "That can't be the end....just like that...after all that...No!!"

I was left overwhelmingly with a vaguely depressed feeling about how much our identity is tied up with circumstances beyond our control. If we are called Kongpi long enough, do we inevitably become Kongpi? I felt sorry for Dongliang....he could not be proud of his father and I wondered how important that was for the creation of his own identity - the sins of the father and all that.

In the end I think, as a review in The Independent suggests, "this is a book that is talking first of all to the Chinese, who are still working out how best to relate to that absurd - and not-so-distant - past." I also recommend reading Abby Wong's review here which constructively disagrees with the assessment given by the Man Asian judges http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/2/28/lifebookshelf/5730870&.... ( )