KirIYamAPrize.org
Title
The Kiriyama Prize
Description
The Kiriyama Prize, originally called the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, consists of a cash award of US$30,000. Both fiction and nonfiction full-length books are eligible for the Prize. Half of the cash award is given to the author of the winning fiction title, and half is given to the author of the winning nonfiction title.
The Prize takes its name from Reverend Seiyu Kiriyama, president and founder of Agon Shu, a Buddhist Association headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. He established the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Institute (KPRI) in 1993. This Institute sponsors a number of initiatives, including the Kiriyama Prize, under the name "Pacific Rim Voices" (PRV). You can find out more about PRV in our sister site, www.pacificrimvoices.org. The Kiriyama Prize, like the KPRI itself, has no specific political or religious agenda.
For the purposes of the Kiriyama Prize we define "Pacific Rim" as including the countries of four distinct sub-regions bordering on the Pacific Ocean, together with the Indian subcontinent. These include the North Pacific made up of China, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North and South Korea, and Eastern Russia; all the countries of Southeast Asia; the Southwest Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and the diverse states, territories, and islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia; the Americas, including the countries of Central and South America on the eastern shores of the Pacific, together with Canada, Mexico, and the United States in North America. Reaching out beyond the geographical Pacific, the Prize also embraces the countries of the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
