South African authors honoured
29 June 2015
Author, political correspondent and commentator Jacob Dlamini and acclaimed
fiction writer Damon Galgut were awarded top honours at the 2015 Sunday Times
Literary Awards, at a dinner held at Summer Place in Sandton on 27 June.
Dlamini received the prestigious Alan Paton Award for his book
Askari: A
Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (Jacana
Media). It is a considered examination of South Africa after 20 years of democracy.
"The judges called it an exceptionally brave, groundbreaking book, learned without
being ponderous, with an insistent moral compass," said Ben Williams,
Sunday Times books editor.
Galgut was awarded the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize for his novel,
Arctic
Summer. Of the book, Williams said: "The judges found the novel to be a
brilliant evocation of the life of EM Forster, from an author writing at the height of
his powers."
The awards
celebrate the best of South African fiction and non-fiction writing from
the previous year. Each winner receives R100 000.
"The entries for this year's Sunday Times Literary Awards were exceptionally
strong, presenting our judges with a particularly tough challenge in choosing
winners. There was decidedly more wheat than chaff to sort, but in the end, we
have two standout books that will shape our literary conversation for years to
come," Williams concluded.
The two were chosen from a combined shortlist, announced at the Franschhoek
Literary Festival on 16 May, of 10 books – five for each prize.
Dlamini's book beat four others:
- Lost and Found in Johannesburg by Mark Gevisser (Jonathan Ball
Publishers);
- DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism by Lindie Koorts
(Tafelberg);
- Postmortem: the Doctor Who Walked Away by Maria Phalime
(Tafelberg); and,
- A Man of Good
Hope by Jonny Steinberg (Jonathan Ball
Publishers).
The four other shortlisted books for the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize were:
- Tales of the Metric System by Imraan Coovadia (Umuzi);
- The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga (Umuzi);
- The Savage Hour by Elaine Proctor (Quercus); and,
- October by Zoe Wicomb (Umuzi).
"This year, the prize money for the awards has been increased to R100 000 each,
which underscores the Sunday Times' commitment to promoting the best of our
literature," said Williams.
The Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, in its 26th year, recognises books that
demonstrate "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 Barry Ronge Fiction Prize, now in its 15th year, is awarded to
"a novel of rare
imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an
enduring landmark of contemporary fiction".
Source: Books Live
