MALAYSIAN Shih-Li Kow is one of six authors, from a longlist of  57 worldwide, in the running for the prestigious 2009 Frank O'Connor Award. Her debut compilation Ripples and Other Stories (published by Silverfish Books) has been shortlisted for the world's richest award for a collection of short stories -- €35,000 (about RM174,000).

Besides Shih-Li, three others have also been nominated for their debut publications --  Zimbabwean Petina Gappah (An Elegy for Easterly), American Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned), and London-born Simon Van Booy (Love Begins in Winter).

Irish writer Philip O Ceallaigh (who has no apostrophe in his name) appears on the shortlist with his second collection of short stories, The Pleasant Light of Day, while New Zealander Charlotte Grimshaw, nominated for Singularity, is described by The Guardian as "something of a veteran in this context, with two novels and a previous collection of short stories to her name".

This year's winner will be announced on 20 September in Cork, Ireland, at an awards ceremony that all nominees must attend. The announcement marks the culmination of Cork's annual Frank O'Connor International short story festival which has been held since 2005.

For last year's award, there were 38 longlisted but the judges dispensed with the ritual of issuing a shortlist, announcing Jhumpa Lahiri winner for her Unaccustomed Earth -- "a unanimous winner at this early stage we decided it would be a sham to compose a shortlist and put five other writers through unnecessary stress and suspense," the award's director, Pat Cotter had explained.

American writer and film-maker Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You won in 2007, Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman in 2006 and the inaugural award went to Yiyun Li for her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.

In an interview in April with NST's Sunday People, when Shih-Li was asked as to what excited her most about writing, she had replied: "The possibilities. On a personal level it's to see how far I can go as a writer in terms of skills and capabilities. It's always nice to be challenged..."

Earlier In March, Silverfish Books owner-publisher Raman Krishnan had written in his then opinion column Synchcronicity with Malay Mail about locally-produced books "coming out thick and fast, and some of them are of international standard.

"Take the recently published Ripples and other stories by Shih-Li Kow. Amir Muhammad gave it an absolutely positive review, and everyone who has read it is full of praise. This book deserves to be in every Malaysian public and school library. But will it? Or will that space be reserved for a badly edited title of uneven quality by the "right" publisher?"

Earlier this week, after receiving the news from Ireland of Shih-Li's achievement, Raman wrote in the Silverfish website: "Well, now she has to be in Cork, Ireland on the 20th of September for the awards presentation at the end of the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival, which starts on the 16th of that month.

"Win or lose, it does not matter anymore. She has already won. Malaysian writing has already won. Malaysian readers have won."