Hanan Prize

Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize

The Hanan Prize for Translation (East and Inner Asia) was established in 2015 and is given biennially to an outstanding English translation of a significant work in any genre originally written in Chinese or an Inner Asian Language, from any time period. 

2026 Prize

$1,000 award for the translator.

Guidelines for Submission

  • Only books bearing a copyright date of 2023 or 2024 will be eligible for the 2026 award.
  • Books may only be nominated for one prize competition within each regional category; please see the main Book Prizes page for regional categories.
  • Publishers must complete the book nomination form.
  • Each press may nominate a maximum of six books for the Hanan Prize.
  • Only publishers may nominate books.
  • Upon receipt of a completed nomination form, publishers will be provided with addresses for prize committee members. A copy of each entry, clearly labeled “Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize,” must be sent to each member of the appropriate committee.

Books published by the Association for Asian Studies, Inc. are ineligible for consideration for prizes administered by the Association for Asian Studies. Employees of the Association are excluded from consideration for AAS book prizes, subventions, and grants. Publishers should check with authors to certify that they are not employed by the Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 

Nominations for the 2026 Hanan Prize are now closed. Winners will be announced in February 2026.


2026 Hanan Prize Committee

Nick Admussen (Chair)
Cornell University

Eileen Chow (Chair)
Duke University

Andrea Lingenfelter
University of San Francisco


2024 Awards

Winner and Citation

David BrophyIn Remembrance of the Saints: The Rise and Fall of an Inner Asian Sufi Dynasty (Columbia University Press)

David Brophy’s translation of Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashghari’s In Remembrance of the Saints reflects the rich culture and transformative political encounters of northwest China and Inner Asia. Rendered with elegance and restraint, this is a tour-de-force translation from Chagatay, Persian, and Arabic of a text crucial to our comprehension of Uyghur, Qing, Sufi, and Islamic history. The volume makes a monumental contribution in bringing this vital but hard-to-access text to an Anglophone community that needs, now more than ever, to understand Central Asian culture and history.


Honorable Mention

Stan LaiSelected Plays of Stan Lai (3 volumes) (University of Michigan Press)

Past Awards

Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize

2016 Xiaofei Tian, The World of a Tiny Insect: A Memoir of the Taiping Rebellion and Its Aftermath by Zhang Daye; Honorable Mention, Anne Behnke Kinney, Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang

2018 Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li and David Schaberg, Zuo Tradition/Zuo Zhuan: Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals”; Honorable Mention, Anthony Barbieri-Low and Robin YatesLaw, State and Society in Early Imperial China

2020 Eleanor Goodman, Roots of Wisdom by Zang Di; Honorable Mention, Michael BerryRemains of Life: A Novel by Wu He

2022 Wai-yee Li, Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge: Two Memoirs about Courtesans; Honorable Mention, Wilt L. IdemaInsects in Chinese Literature: A Study and Anthology