The 2026 Sunday Times Literary Awards longlist

NON FICTION

The award will be bestowed on a book 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”.

Judges

Non-fiction

Chair

Shylock Matsunyane

Matsunyane studied at Tshwane University of Technology, where he earned a diploma in public administration with distinctions in economics and regional development. After working various jobs in the clothing industry, he joined Exclusive Books in 2004. Quickly rising to senior bookseller, he engaged with authors and participated in literacy initiatives such as Metro FM’s Blacks Do Read programme, which promoted reading culture among local communities. Today, as deputy manager at the store in Rosebank Mall, he leads a passionate team and has positioned the branch as a hub for literary events. Through initiatives like Homebru and partnerships with organisations such as Siyafunda Sonke, he continues to promote local authors and foster a culture of reading.

Bronwyn Williams

Williams is a futurist, economist and business-trends analyst. The co-author of The Future Starts Now, Rescuing Our Republic and The Future, she is also a columnist for leading business and technology publications and a well-known global keynote speaker and media commentator on future trends and economic trajectories. Bronwyn has a master’s degree in applied economics and guest-lectures at leading business schools. As a partner at Flux Trends and an associate at Futurist.com, Bronwyn’s research focuses on how macro socio-economic trends and emerging technologies will impact businesses, industries and nations in the short and long term.

Lorraine Sithole

Sithole is a literary advocate, reviewer, festival curator, and reading development strategist. She serves on the board of Thekgang NPC, a strategic industry cluster that strengthens South Africa’s book value chain. As the previous chairperson of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) she championed children’s literature, literacy access, and the global visibility of South African stories. The founder of the BookWorms Book Club and the Launchpad Foundation, Sithole has spent over a decade building communities of readers across age groups, particularly in under-resourced contexts. She has directed programmes for the South African Book Fair, the Gauteng International Book Festival, and the inaugural Johannesburg Festival for Women Writers.

Here is the non-fiction longlist in order of the author’s surname

Death in Pretoria: Untold Stories of Political Activists Executed During Apartheid by Peter Auf der Heyde (Penguin Non-fiction)

A Clergyman’s Daughter: A Memoir by Hannah Botsis (Modjaji Books)

Behind Prison Walls: Unlocking a Safer South Africa by Edwin Cameron; Rebecca Gore; Sohela Surajpal (Tafelberg)

Attacking the Heart of Apartheid: The ANC’s MK Special Operations Unit by Yunus Carrim (Penguin Non-fiction)

Making a Life: Young Men on Johannesburg’s Urban Margins by Hannah J Dawson (Wits University Press)

Belonging: A History of Indian South Africans by Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed (Jonathan Ball Publishers)

The Smallest Ones: Two Sisters’ Escape from DRC Rebels and Their Pursuit of Freedom by Popina Khumanda (Penguin Non-fiction)

Blood’s Inner Rhyme: An Autobiographical Novel by Antjie Krog (Penguin Non-fiction)

How to Build a House in the Mountains by Roger Lucey (Karavan Press)

Faces and Phases of Resilience: A Memoir of a Special Kind by Tinyiko Maluleke Tracey McDonald Publishers)

Out of This World and Into the Next: Notes from a Physicist on Space Exploration by Adriana Marais (Profile Books)

The Nightwatchman: Representing Black Men in Colonial Africa by Hlonipha Mokoena (Wits University Press)

Under Smuts’s Rule: Jan Smuts and His Impact on Black South Africans by Bongani Ngqulunga (Penguin Non-fiction)

Darker Shade of Pale: Shtetl to Colony by Debra Posel (Wits University Press)

Led by Shepherds: An Initiate’s Memoir by Jeffrey Rakabe (Jacana Media)

Undone: Healing from Botched Cosmetic Surgery: A Memoir by Michelle Roniak (Melinda Ferguson Books)

Men & Mental Health: Shattering the Silence by Marion Scher (Bookstorm)

It Always Seems Impossible: My Fight to Build and Save Education Africa by James Urdang (Bookstorm)

We Two From Heaven: A Memoir by James Whyle (Jonathan Ball Publishers

The Shadow State: Why Babita Deokaran Had to Die by Jeff Wicks (Tafelberg)

The Deal: Inside the Talks that Shaped South Africa’s Future by Mandy Wiener (Pan Macmillan)

The Chaos Precinct: Johannesburg as a Port City by Tanya Zack (Jacana Media)

FICTION PRIZE

This is the 25th year of the Sunday Times fiction prize. The criteria stipulate that the winning novel should be one of “rare imagination and style ... a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction”.

Chair - fiction

Craig Higginson

Craig Higginson is a playwright and novelist based in Johannesburg. He has won numerous literary awards, including the Sony Gold Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First, the UJ Main Award for Literature (twice), the HSS Award for Fiction and Naledi Awards for Best New Play. His plays have been performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre in London, the Trafalgar Studios on London’s West End, the Traverse Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival and several other theatres around the world. Craig’s fiction has been published internationally in England and the US. Craig has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Wits University. His novel The Dream House was the IEB Matric set work in South Africa from 2019-2021. His most recent novel, The Ghost of Sam Webster, recently won the Humanities and Social Sciences Award for Fiction and will be published in the US under the title Shadow Country in 2026. Craig was a recent recipient of the Hawthornden Residency in Scotland.

Sue Nyathi

Nyathi is an award-winning Zimbabwean author known for four bestselling and critically acclaimed novels: The Polygamist, The Gold Diggers, A Family Affair and An Angel’s Demise. Her debut, The Polygamist, has been adapted into a Netflix television series set to premiere in June 2026. Beyond fiction, Nyathi has edited two collections of creative nonfiction: Manhood: Confessions from the Heart and When Secrets Become Stories, Women Speak Out . Her essays also appear in the anthologies Black Tax: A Burden or Ubuntu and Hair: Unpicking and Weaving Stories of Identity. In 2024, she co-authored Nozibele Mayaba’s memoir, Positively Me: Daring to Live and Love Beyond HIV. Nyathi is currently at work on her fifth novel. Outside of writing, she serves as a curator for the Johannesburg Festival of Women Writers and the Kingsmead Book Fair.

Joanne Joseph

Joanne is a respected, award-winning TV and radio broadcaster and author who has had a presence in the media for 30 years. She is the author of two South African bestselling books, Drug Muled, Sixteen Years in a Thai Prison (non-fiction) and most recently the historical fiction novel, Children of Sugarcane, which was released locally in 2021, internationally in 2022, won the South African Book Awards “Fiction” and “Overall Winner” categories, and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Award. Children of Sugarcane has been adapted into an audiobook and has become a widely-prescribed novel at educational institutions - Leiden University in the Netherlands, St Joseph’s University, Yale University, and Pennsylvania State University to name a few. Joanne is currently in the midst of a literature PhD. In 2025, the Biscayne Chamber of Commerce in the US awarded her a Certificate of Excellence for impactful storytelling.

Here is the fiction longlist in order of the author’s surname

6h00 Somewhere and Many Hours Later Somewhere Else by Barbara Adair (Hands-On Books)

Salt Water Pool Boy by Peter-Adrian Altini (Karavan Press)

The Nicotine Gospel Sven Axelrad (Umuzi)

Ice Shock by Elleke Boehmer (Karavan Press)

Diplomatic Ties by Mpho Boshego (Pan Macmillan)

Not Another Samoosa Run! by Nadia Cassim (Kwela Books)

Hell of a Country by David Cornwell (Kwela Books)

An Act of Murder by Tom Eaton (Penguin)

The Whale’s Last Song by Joanne Fedler (Modjaji Books)

Song of the Slave Girl by Ashraf Kagee (Jacana Media)

The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women by Michelle Kekana (Jacana Media)

Out of the Dead Lands by Conrad Kemp (Mirari Press)

Bosadi by Kopano Matlwa (Jacana Media)

Canary by Onze Mazibuko (Penguin)

Buried in the Chest by Lindani Mbunyuza-Memani (Jacana Media)

Book People by Paige Nick (Pan Macmillan)

The Immortalites by Claire Robertson (Umuzi)

All the Saints by Wesley Roodt (Jacana Media)

Unsolicited by Andrea Shaw (Jacana Media)

The Fourth Boy by Andrew Robert Wilson (Karavan Press)