Chinese author Yiyun Li, the winner of 2005's inaugural Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award for 'A Thousand Years of Good Prayers', has been named as one of the nominees for the second Orange Award for New Writers.
Li's work, which has also been shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize, is a collection of 10 short stories based among Chinese Americans in the United States and in China.
Li grew up in Beijing but, despite living in the US since 1996, she was recently refused permanent residency in the country.
The other nominees are novels - 'Disobedience', by British writer Naomi Alderman, is set in London's Orthodox Jewish community and Moscow-born Olga Grushin's 'The Dream Life of Sukhanov' is about a Soviet official who regrets his career path.
The Orange Award for New Writers was set up in 2005 as part of the Orange Prize for Fiction.
All first works of fiction, including novels, short story collections and novellas, written in English by a woman of any age or nationality and published as a book in the UK, are eligible for the award, with the emphasis on emerging talent and the evidence of future potential.
Diana Evans took the first Orange Award for New Writers last year for her debut novel, '26A'.
Evans has subsequently gone on to win the Decibel Award 2006 at the British Book Awards, a Betty Trask prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award 2005.
The winner will be announced at the Orange Prize for Fiction award ceremony in London on 6 June.
