The winner of the the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize, Chinese author Bi Feiyu, almost didn't attend the awards ceremony Thursday.

'When I was on the shortlist,' Mr. Bi said last night when he accepted the award, 'my friends and the media in China were all saying, 'Impossible, there's no way a Chinese writer can get a third one,'' he said, referring to the fact that two of the previous three winners of the Man Asian Literary Prize 岸 Jiang Rong (for 'Wolf Totem') and Su Tong ('The Boat to Redemption') 岸 were also Chinese. 'They said, 'Don't even bother going to Hong Kong.' But I had to come because＃I had to show my son that if I did not win, I would still stand there and take it like a man.'

This was the first year that a published novel won the Man Asian prize a cash award of US$30,000. In the previous three years, only unpublished manuscripts were eligible and the award was then US$10,000.

Mr. Bi's winning novel, 'Three Sisters,' is set in the time of the Cultural Revolution. It starts with the birth of a long-awaited son 岸 the eighth child in the Wang family. But the story centers on three of the boy's sisters.

David Parker, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and chairman of the board of directors of the Man Asian Literary Prize, said, 'In its understanding of women trapped by the petty cruelties of provincial life, 'Three Sisters' reaches the heights of the great Russian play its title echoes.'

Mr. Bi received the honor during a black-tie dinner at the Peninsula Hong Kong hotel. Shortlisted Indian authors Manu Joseph ('Serious Men') and Tabish Khair ('The Thing About Thugs') were on hand for the event; Japanese writers Kenzaburo Oe ('The Changeling') and Yoko Ogawa ('Hotel Iris') could not attend and were represented by the translators of their books, Deborah Boehm and Stephen Snyder, respectively.

'Picking a winner from the selection of novels as rich and varied as those before us has made for an embarrassment of riches,' said judge Homi K. Bhahba in a speech shortly before the winner was announced. 'For the house of fiction, as the novelist Henry James once called it, is a wondrous thing. Each window looks out on a different view. Each room provides an alternative way of living. Each door opens onto another country. We readers have unprecedented rights of access to complementary and contradictory worlds.'

English translators of Mr. Bi's book, Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin, also won a cash prize of US$5,000 each. Mr. Goldblatt also translated the two previous winning Chinese novels, 'Wolf Totem' and 'The Boat.'

中国作家毕飞宇获得了2010年英仕曼亚洲文学奖(Man Asian Literary Prize)，而他几乎没赶上周四举行的颁奖典礼。

Earl Wan毕飞宇在昨晚接受该奖时，毕飞宇说：当我入围候选名单后，我的朋友和中国的媒体都说“不可能，不可能有第三个中国作家拿到这个奖”。前三年，有两位中国作家的作品获此奖项，分别是姜戎的《狼图腾》(Wolf Totem)和苏童的《河岸》(The Boat to Redemption)。毕飞宇说：有的朋友劝我“干脆别劳神去香港了”，不过我还是要来……因为我要做给儿子看，即便我没有获奖，也仍然要像个男人一样站在那里。

由一本已出版的小说带走三万美元奖金，今年还是头一遭。之前的三年，只有未经出版的手稿有资格参评，而那时的奖金还是一万美元。

毕飞宇的获奖小说《玉米》(Three Sisters)的故事发生在文化大革命时期。小说从王家的第八个孩子──一个被盼望已久的男孩──的出生讲起，但故事围绕着老八的三个姐姐展开。

香港中文大学教授、英仕曼亚洲文学奖董事会主席大卫·帕克(David Parker)说：《玉米》这部书在理解陷入乡土生活那种小心眼的残忍中的女人方面，达到了俄国同名戏剧《三姐妹》(英文名同称Three Sisters)的艺术高度。

毕飞宇在于香港半岛酒店(Peninsula Hong Kong)举行的正式晚宴上接受了颁奖。其他入围作品中，只有《严肃男人》(Serious Men)和《暴徒的秘密》(The Thing About Thugs)这两部作品的印度作者曼努·约瑟夫(Manu Joseph)和塔比什·卡伊尔(Tabish Khair)来到了现场。《被偷换的孩子》(The Changeling)的作者大江健三郎(Kenzaburo Oe)以及《虹彩酒店》的作者小川洋子(Yoko Ogawa)未能露面，分别由各自作品的译者黛博拉·波姆(Deborah Boehm)和史蒂芬·斯奈德(Stephen Snyder)代为出席。

在公布获奖者名字之前，评委霍米·巴巴(Homi K. Bhahba)在他的演讲中说：让我们从眼前这么多不同风格的小说中选出一部优胜作品实在让人为难。小说家亨利·詹姆斯(Henry James)曾经说过，小说就像一座房子，每扇窗户外都有不同的景象；每间屋子都提供一种不同的生活方式；每扇门都通往另一个国度。作为读者，我们有权进入互不相同或完全对立的世界。

毕飞宇作品的英文本译者霍华德·戈德布拉特(Howard Goldblatt)和林丽君(Sylvia Li-chun Lin)同时各获得5,000美元的奖金。戈德布拉特也是之前两部获奖作品《狼图腾》和《河岸》的译者。