AGSA awards over R518,000 in writing grants

South Africans need to tell their stories, in all their forms and, since the AGSA scheme started, over 90 writing grants have been awarded. Now in its tenth year, with support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy, AGSA was able to distribute over R518,000 in writing grants, more than has been distributed in any one year before.

Kaspars Grinvalds © – 123RF.com

The grant scheme is primarily funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, as well as the SAMRO Foundation, which donates R50,000 each year to fund two grants for books about music. AGSA provides a grant of R20,000 to R25,000 for research and writing, which can to be used by the author to take leave to work on a manuscript, or to travel to conduct research.

These grants usually do not cover the cost of publishing the manuscript, however in 2016, ANFASA awarded a further R20,000 towards the production costs of two of the winning manuscripts.

Awarded grants

1. Paula Fourie: Ghoema vannie Kaap: The Life and Work of Taliep Petersen
2. Brett Pyper: You Can’t Listen Alone: Appreciating Jazz in a Transitioning South Africa
3. David Robbins: Walking to Australia: In the footsteps of humanity’s greatest migration
4. Andrew Lilley: Bheki Mseleku: Analysis of Compositions and Improvisational Style
5. Sarah Simone Haysom: The Outshining Ones: A Story of Law, Justice and Betrayal
6. Michael Schmidt: Death Flight: Apartheid’s Secret Massacre
7. Percy Mabundu: Migrant Worker’s Suite: Essays at the Intersection of Art, Jazz and Democracy
8. Mikhail Peppas: The History of the Moving Image in KwaZulu-Natal
9. Nthabiseng Motsemme: Siyaphanta, Siyahlonipha, Siyaphila Popular Cultures of Survival Amongst Mothers and Daughters in a South African Urban Township
10. Jamala Safari: Fatherhood: A Smile, a Laughter and a Tear
11. Keamogetswe Bopalamo: What I Wore
12. Fezekile Futhwa: Bantu Medicinal Plants
13. Dr Tendai Chari: Political Party Advertising in Transitional Societies: Mapping Contours of Globalization in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe
14. Mpho Peter Lebopa: Bagale le dinatla tsa rena
15. Peter Halala: Shirley Shows the Way
16. Mignonne Breier: Fear and Forgiveness – an Eastern Cape Story (provisional title)
17. Bhekamachunu Mchunu: Anton Lembede: The Making of a Peasant Pan-Africanist
18. Tebogo Mokganyetji: Black Beauty: Understanding beauty and its maintenance through indigenous knowledge system
19. Nhlanhla Maake: Called to Serve: An Episcopal Biography of Archbishop Buti Tlhagale
20. Sihle Khumalo: Around Mzansi in 30 Days (provisional title)
21. Phila Mfundo Msimang: The Idea of Race (and what we’ve done with it)
22. Jedi Ramalapa: My Journey to love (A suitcase full of Stories)
23. Karen Buckenham: Boundaries of Our Discontent: Migration, Xenophobia and Social Cohesion in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
24. Sindiwe Magona: A Champion for the Workers - the biography of Ray Alexander Simons