Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco

The debut novel from 33-year-old Miguel Syjuco won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008 when it was a mere manuscript: Syjuco pronounced himself "gobsmacked" and Ilustrado was snapped up. Spanning 150 years of Philippine history, the novel begins with the body of a leading literary figure being pulled from the Hudson river. His young acolyte is unconvinced by a verdict of suicide and investigates the writer's death – and, through his poetry, stories and the mystery of a missing manuscript – his life. The novel has earned comparisons to with Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell and Roberto Bolaño and will be published in the UK by Picador in June. • This article was amended on 15 April 2010 to correct the spelling of Ilustrado.