Book prizes honor pearls of the Pacific Rim

NEW YORK —  Novelist Rohinton Mistry and memoir writer Pascal Khoo Thwe are the winners of the seventh annual Kiriyama Prize, given for books “that promote greater understanding of and among the nations of the Pacific Rim ... and of the South Asian subcontinent.”

Mistry, a native of India now living in Canada, was cited Tuesday for “Family Matters,” a novel set in Bombay and featuring an ailing patriarch whose children debate how to care for him. “Family Matters,” Mistry’s fourth book, was a finalist for the Booker Prize.

Paschal Khoo Thwe won in the nonfiction category for his first book, “From the Land of Green Ghosts,” the story of his childhood in rural Burma, his years as a guerrilla fighter in the jungle and his eventual journey to England.

The winners share $30,000, given out by Pacific Rim Voices.