Around this time each year, Pacific Rim Voices [2], sponsor of the thirty-thousand-dollar Kiriyama Prizes [2], would announce the winners [3] of the annual awards for books of fiction and nonfiction that encourage "greater understanding of and among the nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia." But about six months ago the San Francisco-based nonprofit announced instead that the award program would be restructured. "While this process is under way, publishers are kindly asked not to submit further entries," the Web site [4] states. "When a new time line and new rules are in place, entries will once again be welcome." So, we wait.

In the meantime, here's a list of the past winners of the prizes. Note that during the first three years of the prize, there was only one winner—in fiction or nonfiction.

2008
Fiction: Lloyd Jones for Mister Pip
Nonfiction: Julia Whitty for The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific

2007
Haruki Murakami for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (translated by Phillip Gabriel and Jay Rubin)
Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin for Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time

2006
Luis Alberto Urrea for The Hummingbird's Daughter
Piers Vitebsky for The Reindeer People

2005
Nadeem Aslam for Maps for Lost Lovers
Suketu Mehta for Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

2004
Shan Sa for The Girl Who Played Go
Inga Clendinnen for Dancing With Strangers

2002
Rohinton Mistry for Family Matters
Pascap Khoo Thwe for From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey

2001
Patricia Grace for Dogside Story
Peter Hessler for River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

2000
Michael Ondaatje for Anil's Ghost
Michael David Kwan for Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China

1999
Cheng Ch'ing-wen for Three-Legged Horse (various translators)
Andrew X. Pham for Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Journey through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

1998
Fiction: Ruth L. Ozeki for My Year of Meats

1997
Nonfiction: Patrick Smith for Japan: A Reinterpretation

1996
Fiction: Alan Brown for Audrey Hepburn's Neck

And, in case you're wondering which countries consitute the Pacific Rim, here's a map from the organization's Web site [5]: