Sunday Times Literary Awards shortlist announced

16 May 2016

Amid the flurry of activities taking place at the Franschhoek Literary Festival this past weekend was the announcement of 2016 shortlist finalists in the Sunday Times Literary Awards, where 10 South African writers were acknowledged for their fiction and non-fiction work. Being named as finalist puts the authors in line for the Barry Ronge Prize and Alan Paton Award respectively.

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”.

2016 Barry Ronge Fiction Prize

The shortlist finalists are:

Boy on the Wire by Alastair Bruce (Umuzi)

The Dream House by Craig Higginson (Picador Africa)

The Magistrate of Gower by Claire Robertson (Umuzi)

Green Lion by Henrietta Rose-Innes (Umuzi)

Hunger Eats a Man by Nkosinathi Sithole (Penguin)

L-R Fourie Botha (Penguin Random House (Umuzi)), Claire Robertson, author of The Magistrate of Gower and Andrea Nattras (Pan Macmillan). Photograph: Esa Alexander, Sunday Times

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.

2016 Alan Paton Award

The shortlist finalists are:

JM Coetzee and the Life of Writing by David Attwell (Jacana Media)

Papwa - Golf’s Lost Legend by Maxine Case (Kwela Books)

To Quote Myself by Khaya Dlanga (Macmillan)

Rape - A South African Nightmare by Pumla Dineo Gqola (MF Books/Jacana Media)

Showdown at the Red Lion by Charles van Onselen (Jonathan Ball Publishers)

L-R Jean Pieters (Kwela), Russell Martin (Jacana), Khaya Dlanga, author of To Quote Myself, Sunday Times editor, Bongani Siqoko, Melinda Ferguson (MF Books Jacana) and Jeremy Boraine (Jonathan Ball). Photograph: Esa Alexander, Sunday Times

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.