Dlamini and Galgut take Sunday Times book prizes

29 Jun 2015

Authors Jacob Dlamini and Damon Galgut were announced as the winners of this year's Sunday Times Literary Awards at a gala ceremony at Summer Place in Sandton on 27 June.

The awards, considered South Africa's pre-eminent literary accolades, celebrate the best of South African nonfiction and fiction from the previous year. Each winner receives R100,000.

Dlamini, a prominent author and political commentator, received the 26th Alan Paton Award for his book Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (Jacana Media).

Damon Galgut, Jacob Dlamini. Image via Twitter

The considered, complex and thought-provoking account of betrayal and collaboration under apartheid impressed the judges, who called it an "exceptionally brave, ground-breaking book, learned without being ponderous, with an insistent moral compass". Acclaimed fiction writer Galgut was awarded the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize for his novel Arctic Summer, which the judges called "a brilliant evocation of the life of EM Forster, from an author writing at the height of his powers".

The keynote speaker of the evening was renowned poet and author Antjie Krog, who delivered a strong statement about the wider structural and economic problems in South Africa that have informed many recent public debates, including those about "decolonising the literary landscape".

Krog, who won the Alan Paton Award in 1999 for her book on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Country of My Skull, told the audience, "At this post-Marikana stage we have to engage in brutal public conversations. It is especially time for anger. I respect anger. Anger is often where important change begins. Not the anger of blind destruction, but the anger that brings clarity of direction, lucidity of purpose."

Ben Williams, Sunday Times books editor, said, "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 stand-out books that will shape our literary conversation for years to come." - Jennifer Platt

Source: Sunday Times

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