The award ceremony of the 4th Sanmao Prose Prize was held in Dinghai district, Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province, on April 20.

The biennial event, which started in 2016, has conferred awards for outstanding essays and prose collections on 562 writers from around the world, according to the organizing committee.

Thirteen essays and 13 prose collections won prizes at this year's event.

A series of cultural activities including a lecture by Sanmao's niece Chen Tianci, art performances, and booths selling cultural and creative products is being held from April 20 to 22.

The prize was named after Sanmao, the pen name of the late Echo Chan, a Chinese contemporary novelist, writer and translator from Taiwan. Her ancestral residence, which was built by her grandfather, is in the district's Miaoqiao village. Sanmao was best known for her book Stories of the Sahara.