Sunday Times Literary Awards announces 2019 fiction, non-fiction shortlist finalists

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Alan Paton Award – which has, over the decades, showcased non-fiction writing in South Africa. The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize, now in its 19th year, honours the authors who enthral with their imagined worlds. The winners will each receive R100,000.

Winners of 2018 Sunday Times Literary Awards announced

25 Jun 2018

Exceptional non-fiction writing

The Alan Paton Award continues to recognise exceptional non-fiction writing that presents “the illumination of truthfulness, especially those forms of it that are new, delicate, unfashionable and fly in the face of power” and that demonstrates “compassion, elegance of writing, and intellectual and moral integrity”.

The longlists for the Sunday Times Literary Awards have been revealed!

The Alan Paton Award and the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize celebrate ‘the best of South African non-fiction and fiction’ from the previous year.

Congratulations to all the authors! https://t.co/ClNhSiKeME

— The JRB (@JoburgReview) April 22, 2019

“The Alan Paton 2019 shortlist is a collection of powerful moments recorded with rigour and beauty,” says Vollenhoven.

The shortlist finalists for the 2019 Alan Paton Award are:

• Heist!: South Africa’s Cash-In-transit Epidemic Uncovered – Anneliese Burgess (Penguin Non-fiction) 
• These Bones Will Rise Again – Panashe Chigumadzi (Jacana Media)
• Breaking a Rainbow, Building a Nation: The Politics Behind #mustfall Movements – Rekgotsofetse Chikane (Picador)
• Everyone is Present: Essays on Photography, Family and Memory – Terry Kurgan (Fourthwall Books)
• Imprisoned: The Experience of a Prisoner Under Apartheid – Sylvia Neame (Jacana Media)

Landmark of contemporary fiction

The criteria for the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize states that the winner should be a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.

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Bragging rights to debut authors Beyers de Vos and Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu for inclusion in Sunday Times Literary Awards Longlists 2019 Fiction Prize! #beyersdevos #siphiwegloriandlovu #penguinbookssa #sundaytimesliteraryaward#barryrongefictionprize #thetheoryofflight #talion

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Barris says: “The five books shortlisted for the 2019 Barry Ronge Prize are not only extraordinarily good, they show diverse strengths.”

The shortlist finalists for the 2019 Barry Ronge Fiction Prize are:

• The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head – John Hunt (Umuzi)
• The Ones with Purpose – Nozizwe Cynthia Jele (Kwela Books)
• The Theory of Flight – Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (Penguin Fiction)
• Under Glass – Claire Robertson (Umuzi)
• Theo & Flora – Mark Winkler (Umuzi)