Jennifer Platt, the Sunday Times books editor, says the 2016 shortlist finalists represent “books of quality, that take the temperature and pulse of the nation”.
The shortlist finalists are:
The judging panel was chaired by Rustum Kozain, a former recipient of the Olive Schreiner Prize, the Ingrid Jonker Prize and the Herman Charles Bosman Award for literature. Kozain notes that the writers are “in control of the mechanics of storytelling and so the storytellers that emerge, and the stories they tell, compel us. And they compel us – seducing us without revealing the seduction – into fictional worlds that are credible because of the quality of the storytelling.”
The fiction judging panel includes Angela Makholwa-Moabelo and Stephen Johnson.
The shortlist finalists are:
The Alan Paton non-fiction judging panel is chaired by playwright, poet, novelist and political activist, Achmat Dangor.
“Each of the writers has approached their chosen subject matter with candour and honesty, and do not hesitate to challenge many popular notions that have become ‘accepted truths’ in our daily public discourse,” says Dangor.
The judging panel includes Tinyiko Maluleke and Pippa Green.
The winners of the Sunday Times Literary Awards will be announced in Sandton on 25 June 2016.
