Rohinton Mistry Wins Kiriyama Award

Rohinton Mistry's Booker-shortlisted novel Family Matters has won this year's Kiriyama Pacific Rim prize.

He shares the award, worth $30,000 (£19,000), with a non-fiction title, Pascal Khoo Thwe's The Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey.

Mistry, a Bombay-born Toronto immigrant, was praised by the judges for the humour and compassion in his novel, which explores contemporary Bombay through the story of a family conflict caused when a cantankerous old man goes to live with his daughter.

Family Matters is Mistry's third acclaimed novel and was a strong contender for this year's Man Booker prize.

The non-fiction winner of the Kiriyama award is an autobiographical account of a young man's upbringing in a remote Burmese village.

Pascal Khoo Thwe became the first member of his community to study English at Mandalay university but was driven into the jungle by the regime of oppression in Burma and became a guerrilla fighter.

A letter from a professor he met during a chance encounter in Mandalay resulted in his rescue and enrolment at Cambridge university.

The chair of the panel of non-fiction judges, James Rosenthal, described The Land of Green Ghosts as not only "an exciting adventure story, a true personal odyssey" but also "a masterly commentary on Burma itself".

The Kiriyama prize, which was inaugurated in 1996, aims to recognise books that promote greater understanding and cooperation among the peoples of the Pacific Rim and South Asia.

Books from anywhere in the world are eligible, provided they are written or translated into English and relate to the nations of the Pacific Rim.

Last year's award went to Maori novelist Patricia Grace for Dogside Story and American journalist Peter Hessler for his memoir River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze.