Ashraf Kagee Wins the 2011/12 EU Literary Award for Khalil’s Journey
Alert! Ashraf Kagee has won the 7th European Union Literary Award for his unpublished manuscript, Khalil’s Journey, as announced at an awards ceremony at the French Institute of South Africa in Braamfontein this evening. The previous EU award went to James Clelland for his Border War novel, Deeper Than Colour.
Professor of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, Kagee beat three other literary newcomers to the prize of R25 000, publication by Jacana Media and inclusion in this year’s Exclusive Books Homebru promotion.
#EULiteraryAward And the winner of the 2011/12 EU Literary Award is… Ashraf Kagee for Khalil’s Journey
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
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Books LIVE tweeted from the ceremony using #EULiteraryAward:
Spotted at the #EULiteraryAward: Hadrien Diez, whose book reviews we’ve been featuring for some time twitter.com/BooksLIVESA/st…
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Past winner James Clelland, Lee Schmidt and past judge Craig McKenzie twitter.com/BooksLIVESA/st…
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward The two shortlistees who will attend tonight: Ashraf Kagee & CA Davids twitter.com/BooksLIVESA/st…
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward We’re about to start. Here are two of the jury, Isabel Hofmeyr & Rehana Roussouw twitter.com/BooksLIVESA/st…
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Amb Lapouge namechecks Brink, Gordimer, Breytenbach, @MeyerDeon & @laurenbeukes
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Davey announces that prev winner Zinaid Meeran’s 2nd book will be published in a few weeks
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Davey: 2nd novels from Ishtaq Suryiat and James Clelland, prev winners, are expected this year
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Davey announces that @laurenbeukes has been nominated for the Grand Prix Imaginaire, for the French translation of Zoo City
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward It’s the jury’s turn. Isabel Hofmeyr takes the podium. ‘This year saw an exceptionally strong field.’
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Hofmeyr and fellow judge Rehana Rossouw will now read excerpts from the four shortlisted novels
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward A snap of the winner with the first pressing of his novel twitter.com/BooksLIVESA/st…
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
#EULiteraryAward Quick-tweet interview w/ Kagee: ‘I’m overwhelmed and humbled. I have to thank my wife Sadiyya for encouraging me to write.’
— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) April 19, 2012
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Press release:
“The voice of the voiceless has been emancipated with great skill…” – Mongane Wally Serote
“Beautifully (and differently) written…traces a real history of SA through minor, ordinary details of a family’s life and a few extraordinary experiences of not-very-powerful people.” – Rehana Rossouw, Business Day
“A fascinating perspective on Cape Town as an Indian Ocean city, drawing on both Malay and Indian strands…” – Isabel Hofmeyr
“He felt a compulsion to remember as much as he could, to make a good yarn out of the story trying to burst out. Khalil tried to contain it, to bottle it up, to close the lid on it, but it kept bubbling up, trying valiantly to get itself told…”
Ashraf Kagee, winner of the seventh annual European Union Literary Award, evokes the richly-textured beauty of everyday life of the last century’s Cape Malay and Indian cultures, and deftly captures the lyrical resonance of voices long forgotten by history.
Khalil, ‘the Companion’, is given his name by The One Above at his birth in 1903. Despite evidence of this divine interest, Khalil’s eighty-odd years of life remain fairly ordinary – even though many of these years are spent under the far from ordinary conditions of The System in South Africa.
In fact, apart from the high moments – an adolescent trip to India, the fleshly delights on his wedding night, and a memorable evening spent with the Black Pimpernel at an abortive meeting organised by the New Unity Movement – Khalil’s later life is mostly taken up with trying to keep his wife and children happy and fed, first as the owner of a general dealer in Woodstock, Cape Town, and later as a less-than-convinced lackey in a wheeler-dealer consortium selling polonies and saffron. Nevertheless, just as Khalil’s birth was a matter offering material for considerable discussion for the doekie-wearing aunties of the neighbourhood, at the end of his life Khalil finds there is more than enough to chew over in his life’s journey.
About the author
Ashraf Kagee is a professor of psychology at Stellenbosch University. He received his PhD in Counselling Psychology from Ball State University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and a Master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Cape Town.
Previous winners of the EU Literary Award
2009/2010 Deeper than Colour by James Clelland
2008/2009 Saracen at the Gates by Zinaid Meeran
2007/2008 Till we can Keep an Animal by Megan Voysey-Braig
2006/07 Coconut by Kopano Matlwa
2005/06 Bitches’ Brew by Fred Khumalo and Ice in the Lungs by Gerald Kraak
2004/05 The Silent Minaret by Ishtiyaq Shukri
Ends
Book details
- Khalil’s Journey by Ashraf Kagee
Book homepage
EAN: 9781431403622
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