Five New Zealand writers are lined up against seven Australians in the shortlists for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for South East Asia and South Pacific:

BEST BOOK AWARD

James George, Ocean Roads, New Zealand, Huia
Lloyd Jones, Mr Pip, New Zealand, Penguin
Damien Wilkins, The Fainter, New Zealand, VUP
Peter Carey, Theft: A Love Story, Australia, Knopf/Random House
Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Australia, Giramondo
Margo Lanagan, Red Spikes, Australia, Allen & Unwin
Deborah Robertson, Careless, Australia, Picador

BEST FIRST BOOK AWARD

Paul Shannon, Davey Darling, New Zealand, Penguin
Carl Nixon, The Fish & Chip Song and other stories, New Zealand, Vintage
Andrew O’Connor, Tuvalu, Australia, Allen & Unwin
Patrick Holland, The Long Road of the Junkmailer, Australia, UQP
Jane Turner Goldsmith, Poinciana, Australia, Wakefield

The two regional winners will be announced on 15 March. They'll go head to head with six other regional winners, from Africa, the Caribbean & Canada, and Europe & South Asia.

The winners of the overall Best Book and Best First Book Prize will be announced at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica on 27 May. £10,000 will be awarded to the author of Overall Best Book, and £5,000 to the author of Best First Book.

In the best traditions of judges' reports, we bring you the words of Regional Chair, Dr. Christine Prentice:

The short lists represent the results of some difficult decisions, as the standard was very high across the pool of entries in both categories. The judges were impressed by the presence of some virtuoso writing by authors at the top of their craft, as well as by both established and new writers who were prepared to be adventurous in literary strategies, point of view, and subject matter.

Entries this year included a number of works that offered global engagements, past and present, from regional perspectives, or in some way explored the region as constituted by and impacted on by colonisations, migrations, or warfare, involving Europe, the United States, Asia and some of the regions of the Pacific less commonly drawn on in fiction.

We were also impressed with how complexity of tone—specifically the use of humour, and particularly black humour, satire, or other comic modes—allowed often difficult and confronting subject-matter—including race, class and even global terrorism and its effects on civil liberties—to transcend the tragic mode, while still achieving some revealing and occasionally searing critiques of contemporary social and political realities.

Go James, Lloyd, Damien, Paul and Carl. Good work, fellas.

LeafSalon hopes you can repeat the exploits of the cricketers, and whip the Aussies in this literary international.