Archive for the ‘Awards’ Category
by Carolyn on May 15th, 2012
Sonja Loots en Theo Kemp het vanjaar ATKV WOORDtroFEES ontvang vir die informatiewe, verhelderende, diepsinnige en substansiële gesprekke wat hulle tydens die US Woordfees oor hul romans gevoer het.
Loots het met die titel van uitstaande, gevestigde woordkunstenaar weggestap vir haar gesprek oor Sirkusboere, terwyl Kemp as debuutskrywer vir sy bespreking van Skool bekroon is.
Amanda Strydom het die trofee vir kontemporêre musiek vir die produksie Binnekamer gekry. Wessel Pretorius is vir sy eenmanstuk, Ont, in die kategorie vir beste dramaproduksie bekroon. Cape Consort is as die beste klassiekemusiekkunstenaars aangewys en Willem Stydrom is as visuele kunstenaar vereer.
Ivor Fortuin van New Orleans Sekondêr en America van der Merwe van die Hoër Tegniese Skool Proteus is vir hul bydrae tot onderwys met die Woorde Open Wêrelde-toekennings bekroon.
Kyk die KykNET-program Bravo se video van die glansgeleentheid waar die wenners bekendgemaak is en lees die persverklaring:
Persverklaring:
Die ATKV WOORDtroFEES, wat jaarliks toegeken word vir uitnemende aanbiedings op die US Woordfees, is op 3 Mei 2012 tydens ’n spoggerige geleentheid op Bon Esperance buite Stellenbosch toegeken. Dit is die derde keer wat dié spogtoekennings gemaak word.
Twee romansiers het weggestap met die louere as Woordfees 2012 se uitstaande Woordkunstenaars. Sonja Loots, skrywer van Sirkusboere, en Theo Kemp, wat in 2011 gedebuteer het met Skool, is onderskeidelik as gevestigde en debuutskrywer bekroon vir hul feesgesprekke oor hul romans. Verlede jaar het Elsa Joubert en Deborah Steinmair met dié gesogte toekennings weggestap.
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by Carolyn on May 15th, 2012
The shortlists for the 2012 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and Alan Paton Award were announced this weekend at the Franschhoek Literary Festival. Take a look at the photo gallery:
Yewande Omotoso (Bom Boy), HJ Golakai (The Lazarus Effect), Henrietta Rose-Innes (Nineveh) and Michiel Heyns (Lost Ground) were shortlisted for the Fiction Prize, along with Adam Schwartzman (not pictured) for his novel Eddie Signwriter:
Andrew Feinstein (The Shadow World), Mandy Wiener (Killing Kebble), McIntosh Polela (My Father, My Monster) and Anton Harber (Diepsloot) were shortlisted for the Alan Paton Award, along with Jonny Steinberg and Hugh Lewin (not pictured) for their books (Little Liberia) and (Stones Against the Mirror) respectively:
The guest list included the who’s who of SA lit:
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by Sophy on May 15th, 2012
By Tymon Smith for the Sunday Times:
The criteria: ‘The illumination of truthfulness, especially those forms of it that are new, delicate, unfashionable and fly in the face of power; compassion; elegance of writing; and intellectual and moral integrity.’
The six books and one honorary mention on this year’s shortlist for the Alan Paton Award show South African writers grappling not only with themselves but with universal issues which are pertinent both to our society and to others in similar circumstances elsewhere in the world.
The fact that there is an extra book on this year’s shortlist points to the difficulty of making a choice between so many well written and researched books in a particularly strong year for the award. In the end it was those books that displayed the most searing honesty and best writing, and moved the judges the most, that earned places on the shortlist.
Although an atypical entry for the award, the judges were so moved and disturbed by photographer Pierre Crocquet De Rosemond’s Pinky Promise, an examination of the horrors and faces of the scourge of child abuse, as to award it an honorary mention.
Andrew Feinstein‘s exhaustively researched and accessibly written account of the global arms trade and the nefarious characters involved in it was an obvious choice for the shortlist. Veteran journalist Anton Harber’s examination of the local politics and community action of the township of Diepsloot stood as a shining example of the kind of reportage too often lacking in local writing and earned the book its place on the shortlist.
Hugh Lewin’s deeply moving, honest and conceptually sophisticated examination of his relationship with Adrian Leftwich – his best friend and betrayer – and of the failings of white liberal politics under apartheid earned him a deserved spot.
McIntosh Polela’s brave and honest account of his struggles to make something of himself under terrible conditions, and his heartbreaking look at his difficult relationship with his father, made sure that the voice of many unheard South Africans was acknowledged by the judges.
Two-time winner Jonny Steinberg, moving his focus away from South Africa towards the Liberian refugee community in the US, impressed the judges with his clean prose and intelligent analysis of a brutal civil war and its far-reaching psychological impact. Finally the tightly told, well-researched account of the killing of Brett Kebble by Mandy Wiener entertained and impressed the panel, earning its young author her place on a strong, diverse and wide-ranging shortlist for the country’s premier non-fiction award.
THE SHORTLIST
THE SHADOW WORLD by Andrew Feinstein, Jonathan Ball
DIEPSLOOT by Anton Harber, Jonathan Ball
STONES AGAINST THE MIRROR by Hugh Lewin, Umuzi
MY FATHER, MY MONSTER by McIntosh Polela, Jacana
LITTLE LIBERIA by Jonny Steinberg, Jonathan Ball
KILLING KEBBLE by Mandy Wiener, Pan Macmillan
Honorary mention: PINKY PROMISE by Pierre Crocquet De Rosemond, Fourthwall Books
What the judges said
“As judges, we feel that this shortlist is a fair representation of the best of the different kinds of writing that we thought were good among the books in the long list.
It also seems significant that the books short-listed include titles that venture beyond South Africa’s borders to other communities in other places, engaging us with questions of global concern and South Africa’s place in the world, and so reflecting perhaps a slow move away from the (understandably) inward gaze and preoccupation with the national frame that has tended to characterise writing by South African authors.”
– Prishani Naidoo, chairwoman of the judging panel
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by Sophy on May 15th, 2012
By Tymon Smith for the Sunday Times:
The criteria: “It should be a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.”
Cape Town, that most difficult, divided and unnervingly contrary of South African metropoles, is at the heart of three out of the five novels on the shortlist for this year’s fiction prize, with a fourth written by a Cape writer – set in the Karoo – and the fifth written by a South African now living in Turkey, whose novel spans the globe from Ghana to Senegal and Paris.
With three out of five authors writing about characters from elsewhere in the continent, this is also a shortlist that reflects a new “Africanity” in the thinking of local fiction writers, a welcome new direction for local fiction that demonstrates the multitude of possibilities for looking not only within but beyond our geographical and psychological borders.
Liberian HJ Golakai earned a place with her crime novel, set in Cape Town, starring the self-assured, chaotic investigative journalist Vee Johnson and combining genre elements with a nuanced look at the social peculiarities of the Mother City.
Veteran author Michiel Heyns, previously shortlisted for the award, impressed the judges with his beautifully written and cleverly conceived novel of a small Western Cape town, whose community is shocked by a crime into confronting itself and its place within the context of broader upheavals in the country at large.
Caine Prize-winner Henrietta Rose-Innes tells the tale of a pest controller in her novel Nineveh, which the judges complimented for the author’s expert prose and ability to examine a range of complex issues, not only about the city in which it is set but also speaking to broader socio-political concerns in the world.
Nigerian writer Yewande Omotoso also explores the city of Cape Town in her assured debut, which leads the reader through new ways of exploring the city and introduces a cast of colourful and unexpected characters along the way.
Finally, South African-born Adam Schwartzman‘s poignant and funny tale, Eddie Signwriter, traversing the world from Ghana to Senegal and Paris, earned a place on this year’s Afropolitan, multi-faceted and reassuringly globally focused shortlist.
THE SHORTLIST
THE LAZARUS EFFECT by HJ Golakai, Kwela
LOST GROUND by Michiel Heyns, Jonathan Ball
NINEVEH by Henrietta Rose-Innes, Umuzi
BOM BOY by Yewande Omotoso, Modjaji Books
EDDIE SIGNWRITER by Adam Schwartzman, Penguin
What the judges said
“Each of the writers on the shortlist uses language powerfully, and beautifully, and makes rich use of metaphor, allegory and an economy of language and style, and this bodes well for the future of fiction in this country. Many of the writers are young, and for several of them the books chosen are first novels. All of these issues were weighed carefully by the judges and we are confident that we have made a rigorous choice and have drawn the outline of an emerging and exciting fictional conversation among them.”
– Sarah Nuttall, chairwoman of the judging panel
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by Sophy on May 12th, 2012
Alert! The shortlist for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award was announced this evening at the Franschhoek Literary Festival.
This year sees six titles on a shortlist usually limited to five. The list includes Books LIVE member Andrew Feinstein, recognised for his exploration of the global arms trade, The Shadow World. Joining Feinstein are journalistic heavyweights Anton Harber (Diepsloot), Jonny Steinberg (Little Liberia) and Mandy Wiener (Killing Kebble), as well as Hawks spokeperson McIntosh Polela (My Father, My Monster) and anti-apartheid activist Hugh Lewin (Stones Against the Mirror).
The winner of the R75 000 prize, awarded last year to Ronnie Kasrils for The Unlikely Secret Agent, will be announced at an awards ceremony in Johannesburg in June. Congratulations and best of luck to all the shortlistees!
View the 2012 Sunday Times Fiction Prize shortlist here.
The shortlist
- Stones Against the Mirror by Hugh Lewin
- Little Liberia by Jonny Steinberg
- Diepsloot by Anton Harber
- Killing Kebble by Mandy Wiener
- The Shadow World by Andrew Feinstein
- My Father, My Monster by McIntosh Polela
~ ~ ~
Press release:
The prestigious Sunday Times Literary Awards shortlist was announced this weekend at the world-renowned Le Quartier Français restaurant in Franschhoek, where literary icons and book lovers alike gathered to celebrate the results. Six books made the shortlist for the 23rd Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, and five made the cut for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize for creative writing, which is now in its 12th year.
The shortlisted books for the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction are:
The Shadow World by Andrew Feinstein (published by Jonathan Ball)
Diepsloot by Anton Harber (published by Jonathan Ball)
Stones Against the Mirror by Hugh Lewin (published by Umuzi)
My Father, My Monster by McIntosh Polela (published by Jacana)
Little Liberia by Jonny Steinberg (published by Jacana)
Killing Kebble by Mandy Wiener (published by Pan Macmillan).
The shortlisted books for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize are:
Lost Ground by Michiel Heyns (published by Jonathan Ball)
The Lazarus Effect by HJ Golakai (published by Kwela)
Nineveh by Henrietta Rose-Innes (published by Umuzi)
Bom Boy by Yewande Omotoso (published by Modjaji Books)
Eddie Signwriter by Adam Schwartzman (published by Penguin).
“The judging panel of this year’s Alan Paton Award were so moved and disturbed by photographer Pierre Crocquet De Rosemond’s Pinky Promise, which examines the horrors and faces of the scourge of child abuse, that they decided to award the book an honorary mention,” says Tymon Smith, Sunday Times books editor.
In addition, there is also an extra book on this year’s Alan Paton shortlist. “This points to the difficulty of making a choice between 41 well-written, well-researched and carefully thought out books in a particularly strong year for the award. In the end, it was those books that displayed the most searing honesty with writing that moved the judges the most, that earned their place on the final shortlist,” says Smith.
Prishani Naidoo, activist, writer and lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Wits University, chaired this year’s Alan Paton Award judging panel. According to Naidoo the judges felt the shortlist represented the wide spectrum of writing-styles from the non-fiction longlist. “It also seems significant that the shortlisted books include stories that venture beyond South Africa’s borders, dealing with issues of global concern and South Africa’s place in the world. This perhaps reflects a slow move away from the (understandably) inward gaze and preoccupation with the national frame, which has tended to characterise writing by South African authors.”
One such up-and-coming author, who entertained and impressed the panel with her tightly told and well-researched account of the killing of Brett Kebble is Mandy Wiener who said the nomination meant a tremendous amount to her. “As a first time author with a relative short career in literature, this is an incredible accolade for me. It is so important that stories that feature in daily news agendas receive this kind of attention.”
Sarah Nuttall, chairperson of the Fiction Prize judging panel, and professor of English at the University of Stellenbosch, congratulated local publishers for encouraging and nurturing new writing talent but expressed concerns that in some cases a lack of attention to editing meant that several good ideas were not as well executed as they could have been and suffered as a result. Nuttal said “attention to editing will only help the industry as a whole in the long run, as it means that good ideas will be ably supported by excellence of execution, making it easier for these writers to compete on a level with those authors who have benefited from the advice of a patient and knowledgeable editor”.
On the fiction entries, Smith comments; “It was once again heartening to see young authors competing head-to-head with their more established counterparts, while also noting how contemporary issues and concerns are becoming more important to local fiction writers as they try to navigate the maze of identities, histories and pressures of life in a fast-paced, democratic, post-apartheid South Africa.”
The overall winners of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize will be announced on the evening of Thursday 21 June at Summer Place in Johannesburg. For full details of this year’s event and nominees, visit www.bookslive.co.za.
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by Sophy on May 12th, 2012
Alert! The shortlist for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize was announced this evening at the Franschhoek Literary Festival.
The list features Books LIVE members Henrietta Rose-Innes (Nineveh), Yewande Omotoso (Bom Boy) and Adam Schwartzman (Eddie Signwriter). Joining them to make a list of five are the established writer Michiel Heyns (Lost Ground) and debut novelist HJ Golakai (The Lazarus Effect).
The winner of the R75 000 prize, awarded last year to Sifiso Mzobe for Young Blood, will be announced at an awards ceremony in Johannesburg in June. Congratulations and best of luck to all the shortlistees!
View the 2012 Alan Paton Award for non-fiction shortlist here.
The shortlist
- The Lazarus Effect by HJ Golakai
- Lost Ground by Michiel Heyns
- Nineveh by Henrietta Rose-Innes
- Bom Boy by Yewande Omotoso
- Eddie Signwriter by Adam Schwartzmann
~ ~ ~
Press release:
The prestigious Sunday Times Literary Awards shortlist was announced this weekend at the world-renowned Le Quartier Français restaurant in Franschhoek, where literary icons and book lovers alike gathered to celebrate the results. Six books made the shortlist for the 23rd Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, and five made the cut for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize for creative writing, which is now in its 12th year.
The shortlisted books for the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction are:
The Shadow World by Andrew Feinstein (published by Jonathan Ball)
Diepsloot by Anton Harber (published by Jonathan Ball)
Stones Against the Mirror by Hugh Lewin (published by Umuzi)
My Father, My Monster by McIntosh Polela (published by Jacana)
Little Liberia by Jonny Steinberg (published by Jacana)
Killing Kebble by Mandy Wiener (published by Pan Macmillan).
The shortlisted books for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize are:
Lost Ground by Michiel Heyns (published by Jonathan Ball)
The Lazarus Effect by HJ Golakai (published by Kwela)
Nineveh by Henrietta Rose-Innes (published by Umuzi)
Bom Boy by Yewande Omotoso (published by Modjaji Books)
Eddie Signwriter by Adam Schwartzman (published by Penguin).
“The judging panel of this year’s Alan Paton Award were so moved and disturbed by photographer Pierre Crocquet De Rosemond’s Pinky Promise, which examines the horrors and faces of the scourge of child abuse, that they decided to award the book an honorary mention,” says Tymon Smith, Sunday Times books editor.
In addition, there is also an extra book on this year’s Alan Paton shortlist. “This points to the difficulty of making a choice between 41 well-written, well-researched and carefully thought out books in a particularly strong year for the award. In the end, it was those books that displayed the most searing honesty with writing that moved the judges the most, that earned their place on the final shortlist,” says Smith.
Prishani Naidoo, activist, writer and lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Wits University, chaired this year’s Alan Paton Award judging panel. According to Naidoo the judges felt the shortlist represented the wide spectrum of writing-styles from the non-fiction longlist. “It also seems significant that the shortlisted books include stories that venture beyond South Africa’s borders, dealing with issues of global concern and South Africa’s place in the world. This perhaps reflects a slow move away from the (understandably) inward gaze and preoccupation with the national frame, which has tended to characterise writing by South African authors.”
One such up-and-coming author, who entertained and impressed the panel with her tightly told and well-researched account of the killing of Brett Kebble is Mandy Wiener who said the nomination meant a tremendous amount to her. “As a first time author with a relative short career in literature, this is an incredible accolade for me. It is so important that stories that feature in daily news agendas receive this kind of attention.”
Sarah Nuttall, chairperson of the Fiction Prize judging panel, and professor of English at the University of Stellenbosch, congratulated local publishers for encouraging and nurturing new writing talent but expressed concerns that in some cases a lack of attention to editing meant that several good ideas were not as well executed as they could have been and suffered as a result. Nuttal said “attention to editing will only help the industry as a whole in the long run, as it means that good ideas will be ably supported by excellence of execution, making it easier for these writers to compete on a level with those authors who have benefited from the advice of a patient and knowledgeable editor”.
On the fiction entries, Smith comments; “It was once again heartening to see young authors competing head-to-head with their more established counterparts, while also noting how contemporary issues and concerns are becoming more important to local fiction writers as they try to navigate the maze of identities, histories and pressures of life in a fast-paced, democratic, post-apartheid South Africa.”
The overall winners of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize will be announced on the evening of Thursday 21 June at Summer Place in Johannesburg. For full details of this year’s event and nominees, visit www.bookslive.co.za.
Ends
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by Lindsay on May 11th, 2012
Kenyan author Billy Kahora has been shortlisted for the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story “Urban Zoning”, published in Vol. 37 of McSweeney’s. Kahora is up against Nigeria’s Rotimi Babatunde, Malawi’s Stanley Kenani, Zimbabwe’s Melissa Tandiwe Myambo and South Africa’s Constance Myburgh for the £10 000 prize, the winner of which will be announced on 2 July. Last week we featured shortlisted story, Babatunde’s “Bombay Republic”.
While you await the announcement of the award, we invite you to read “Urban Zoning”:
Outside on Tom Mboya Street, Kandle realized that he was truly in the Zone. The Zone was the calm, breathless place he found himself in after drinking for a minimum of three days straight. He had slept for less than fifteen hours, in strategic naps, had eaten just enough to avoid going crazy, and had drunk enough water to make a cow go belly-up. The two-hour baths of Hell’s Gate
hot-spring heat had also helped.
Kandle had discovered the Zone when he was seventeen. He had swapped vices by taking up alcohol after the pleasures of casual sex had waned. In a city–village rumor circuit full of outlandish tales of ministers’ sons who drove Benzes with trunks full of cash, of a character called Jimmy X who was unbeaten in about five hundred bar fights going back to the late ’80s; in a place where sixty-year-old tycoons bedded teenagers and kept their panties as souvenirs; in a town where the daughter of one of Kenya’s richest businessmen held parties that were so exclusive that Janet Jackson had flown down for her birthday—Kandle, self-styled master of The Art of Seventy-Two-Hour Drinking, had achieved a footnote.
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by Sophy on May 7th, 2012
Alert! The Sunday Times published the longlists for its 2012 literary awards at the weekend.
The richest one-off prizes in SA Lit, the Fiction Prize and Alan Paton Award come with cheques for R75 000 each.
This year’s Fiction Prize longlist comprises some thirty-nine titles published in 2011 – which will be whittled down to a handful when the shortlist is announced on Saturday at the Franschhoek Literary Festival.
Last year’s winner was Sifiso Mzobe, for Young Blood.
Click here for the 2012 Alan Paton Award longlist.
Without further ado, the 2012 Fiction Prize longlist (best of luck to Books LIVE members, linked to in bold!):
The Longlist
Tymon Smith writes up the longlist for the Sunday Times:
Crime novels and thrillers are emerging as genres in which South African authors can explore issues both past and present
In a year when the literary merits and rising popularity of crime fiction in the local industry have provided a hot topic for debate on the internet and in the pages of newspapers and literary journals, it was unsurprising to find that this year’s longlist was dominated by crime novels and thrillers. These extended not only to South African stories but also to stories centred on African characters living in the country today. The judges felt that “it is clear, and perhaps for reasons we haven’t fully understood yet, that crime, the whodunit, is generating a feasible and readerly way of writing about the South African present, the question of politics, the complexities of race and class interests”.
The experiences of other African citizens also provided a wealth of material for local authors, both at home and abroad. The judges felt: “The most exciting development in South African letters today is the role of the foreigner, the alien, the despised African from beyond our borders who is now in our midst and who educates us on how to be human, by word or precept, and who lends to our vocabulary a language shot through with the kind of humanity and courage we still have to relearn.”
It was also heartening to see young authors competing toe-to-toe with their more established counterparts and to see the ways in which contemporary issues and concerns are becoming more important to local fiction writers as they try to navigate the maze of identities, histories and pressures of life in a fast-paced democratic post-apartheid South Africa.
While, as always, the judging panel congratulates local publishers for encouraging and nurturing new writing talent, there were concerns in some cases that a lack of attention to editing meant that several good ideas were not as well executed as they could have been and suffered as a result. Attention to editing will only help the industry as a whole in the long run, as it means that good ideas will be ably supported by excellence of execution, making it easier for these writers to compete on a level with those authors who have benefited from the advice of a patient and knowledgeable editor.
The local fiction market is a difficult place at the best of times and it is always encouraging to see that it continues to grow. In the words of the judges: “Good writing in this country must still carry something of a charge, and electricity, in relation to the extraordinary complexities of being South African at present.”
The Judges
MANDLA LANGA
Mandla Langa was born in Durban in 1950, studied for a BA at the University of Fort Hare but left following widespread student protests in 1972. He taught at a high school in KwaMashu in 1973/74 before going into exile in 1976. He has lived in Lesotho, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Hungary and the UK. In 1980 he won the pan-African Drum Magazine story contest and in 1991 he was awarded the Arts Council of Great Britain Bursary. He was deputy chief representative and cultural representative of the ANC in the UK and a weekly columnist for the Sunday Independent. He is the author of five books, including The Memory of Stones and The Lost Colours of the Chameleon, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Africa Region in 2009 and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Fiction Prize. In 2007 he received the country’s National Order of Ikhamanga (Silver) for his literary, journalistic and cultural achievements. From 1999-2005 he chaired the Independent Communications Authority of SA. He chairs the board of MultiChoice Africa and co-chairs the board of Koketso Holdings.
IMRAAN COOVADIA
Imraan Coovadia was born in Durban and educated in the US and has lived in London, Melbourne, Boston and New York. He is the author of The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves and High Low In-Between, which won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize in 2010. Coovadia teaches creative writing at the University of Cape Town and his latest novel, The Institute for Taxi Poetry, was published last month by Umuzi.
SARAH NUTTALL
Sarah Nuttall is Research Professor in English at the University of Stellenbosch. She worked for 10 years at Wiser (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research) in Johannesburg. She is the author of Entanglement: Literary and cultural reflections on post-apartheid and co-editor of Load Shedding: Writing On and Over the Edge of South Africa and Johannesburg – The Elusive Metropolis.
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by Sophy on May 7th, 2012
Alert! The Sunday Times published the longlists for its 2012 literary awards at the weekend.
The Alan Paton Award for non-fiction is accomapanied by the Fiction Prize – and both are accompanied by R75 000 cheques for the winners, making them the richest one-off prizes in SA Lit.
This year’s Alan Paton Award longlist sees over forty titles competing for the big gong – which was won last year by Ronnie Kasrils, for his memoir The Unlikely Secret Agent.
The shortlist will be announced on Saturday at the Franschhoek Literary Festival.
Click here for the 2012 Sunday Times Fiction Prize longlist; and scroll away for this year’s Alan Paton hopefuls. Good luck, especially, to Books LIVE members, linked to in bold:
The Longlist
Tymon Smith writes up the longlist for the Sunday Times:
This year’s entries reveal a more critical examination by contemporary writers of the notions of truth and memory
The longlist for the non-fiction award always presents a difficult task for the judges, who have to balance the issues explored in the books with the need for a mode of expression that highlights excellence of writing and conveys ideas in a clear and accessible manner.
This year’s list reflects a society grappling with a number of multi-layered problems that, according to the judges’ report, “cannot be simply reduced to ‘the legacy of apartheid’ anymore, and a group of writers committed, in the main, to presenting and confronting these issues in ways that unravel their complexities and discover their nuances, forcing us to acknowledge particularly difficult problems.”
At the same time the longlist is mixed both in terms of substance and quality and there were, as ever, many books that the judges felt could have benefited from a more rigorous editing process. Several of the titles submitted, while often reflecting rich research processes, did not convey their findings in ways that keep readers interested or that speak meaningfully to society beyond their immediate focus.
There were also several books that the judges felt, “creatively contribute to a ‘re-memory’ (a term coined by Toni Morrison in her book Beloved) of our collective past, making certain silences in our history speak and animating otherwise stick figures in an expected and predictable march.”
While some of the judges were disappointed by the lack of quality, book-length contemporary reportage titles and a lack of focus on difficulties facing everyday South Africans, they were impressed by the ways in which “many of the books also pay attention to the very act of writing, experimenting with styles and techniques in very self-conscious ways, drawing attention to the position of the authors, the power-laden nature of the writing process and related relationships, and the effects or products of the written work on real people and real situations.” This is a good thing, as it reflects a more critical examination by contemporary writers of notions of the truth and memory.
As always, in spite of some reservations, the longlist for the award continues to demonstrate the rich, diverse and generally healthy state of non-fiction in the country today and reading these titles has proved a rewarding experience full of surprises and fascinating insights into our collective psychology as a nation.
The Judges
ANTONY ALTBEKER
Antony Altbeker is a researcher and writer. Since 1994, he has worked in government, at universities and for a variety of think tanks. He is the author of three best-selling works of narrative non-fiction – The Dirty Work of Democracy: A year on the streets with the SAPS (2005) shortlisted for The Alan Paton Award, A Country at War with Itself: South Africa’s crisis of crime (2007), and Fruit of a Poisoned Tree: A true story of murder and the miscarriage of justice (2010). Altbeker is married with three children, lives in Joburg and runs the popular dinner-booze-and-book club at the Troyeville Hotel.
PRISHANI NAIDOO
Prishani Naidoo is a writer, researcher and lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Wits University. She is co-editor of the New South African Review and author of a number of academic and popular essays on a wide range of issues. Before joining Wits, she co-founded the research collective RED (Research and Education in Development). She has a long history of activism, beginning in the early 1990s, when she joined the ANC western areas branch in Durban. She has a BA with majors in sociology and English, and an honours degree in comparative literature. After university, Naidoo, along with others, helped found the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) in Joburg. She was awarded her PhD in 2011, focused on struggles for basic services in post-apartheid SA.
PETER HARRIS
Peter Harris practised law for many years at Cheadle, Thompson & Haysom. In the early 1990s, he was seconded to the National Peace Accord, after which he headed the Monitoring Directorate of the Independent Electoral Commission for the 1994 election responsible for the freeness and fairness of the election. He returned to law and also consulted internationally for the UN in various countries around the world. He currently heads a large management consultancy. Harris is the author of In A Different Time, winner of the Alan Paton Award in 2009, Jenny Crwys-Williams’ Book Club Book of the Year for 2009
award and winner of the South African Booksellers Choice Award 2009. His third book, titled Birth about a conspiracy to stop the 1994 election was published in November 2010.
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- Cities with ‘Slums’: From informal settlement eradication to a right to the city in Africa by Marie Huchzermeyer
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- A Living Man from Africa: Jan Tzatzoe, Xhosa Chief and Missionary, and the Making of Nineteenth-Century South Africa by Roger Levine
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by Sophy on May 1st, 2012
Alert! The shortlist for the Thirteenth Caine Prize for African Writing has just been announced. The winner of the £10 000 prize, currently held by Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo, will be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 2 July.
BOOK LIVE sends its congratulations to the shortlistees, as follows:
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Press release:
The shortlist for the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced today (Tuesday 1 May) by Ben Okri OBE, the new Vice President of the Prize.
The Chair of judges, author and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature Bernardine Evaristo MBE, has described the shortlist as “truly diverse fiction from a truly diverse continent.”
The Caine Prize, Africa’s leading literary award, is now in its thirteenth year. Involved from the beginning, Ben Okri, the internationally acclaimed Nigerian writer was announced as the Vice President of the Prize last week (26 April 2012). Ellah Allfrey OBE, deputy Editor of Granta magazine is the new Deputy Chair.
The 2012 shortlist comprises:
- Rotimi Babatunde (Nigeria) ‘Bombay’s Republic’ from ‘Mirabilia Review’ Vol. 3.9 (Lagos, 2011) http://mirabilia.webs.com/
- Billy Kahora (Kenya) ‘Urban Zoning’ from ‘McSweeney’s’ Vol. 37 (San Francisco, 2011) www.mcsweeneys.net
- Stanley Kenani (Malawi) ‘Love on Trial’ from ‘For Honour and Other Stories’ published by eKhaya/Random House Struik (Cape Town, 2011) www.randomstruik.co.za
- Melissa Tandiwe Myambo (Zimbabwe) ‘La Salle de Départ’ from ‘Prick of the Spindle’ Vol. 4.2 (New Orleans, June, 2010) www.prickofthespindle.com
- Constance Myburgh (South Africa) ‘Hunter Emmanuel’ from ‘Jungle Jim’ Issue 6, (Cape Town, 2011) www.junglejim.org
In her first year as Caine Prize Administrator Lizzy Attree stated, “this year’s shortlist represents the best of short African fiction published worldwide. I’m looking forward to working with Ben Okri and Ellah Allfrey to continue to establish the Caine Prize as the mark of excellence in African literature.”
Selected from 122 entries from 14 African countries Bernardine Evaristo said, “I’m proud to announce that this shortlist shows the range of African fiction beyond the more stereotypical narratives. These stories have an originality and facility with language that made them stand out. We’ve chosen a bravely provocative homosexual story set in Malawi; a Nigerian soldier fighting in the Burma Campaign of WW2; a hardboiled noir tale involving a disembodied leg; a drunk young Kenyan who outwits his irate employers; and the tension between Senegalese siblings over migration and family responsibility.”
The winner of the £10,000 prize is to be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 2 July.
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Images courtesy Guernica and Caine Prize
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