The 10 finalists in this year’s Sunday Times Literary Awards, in partnership with Exclusive Books, have been chosen.
The awards celebrate the best of South African nonfiction and fiction published between December 2020 and December 2021, and the shortlist announcement has become a much-anticipated event among SA’s writers, readers and publishers.
The 2022 fiction judging panel was chaired by award-winning author Ekow Duker, alongside journalist and former editor Kevin Ritchie and writer and political analyst Nomboniso Gasa.
The nonfiction panel was led by author and founder of Bridge Books Griffin Shea, joined by former journalist and author Nomavenda Mathiane and Bongani Ngqulunga, director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study and author of The Man Who Founded the ANC: A Biography of Pixley ka Isaka Seme, which won the nonfiction prize in 2018.
The judges agreed that this year’s decision-making process was particularly challenging, but in a good way, because both longlists were so strong. The discussions were heated and tough choices had to be made until they finally settled on 10 books that best showcase the range and quality of South African writing.
The five finalists in the nonfiction category are: Bloody Sunday: The Nun, the Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s Secret Massacre by Mignonne Breier (Tafelberg); Scatterling of Africa: My Early Years by Johnny Clegg (Pan Macmillan); The Poisoners: On South Africa’s Toxic Past by Imraan Coovadia (Umuzi); Land Matters: South Africa’s Failed Land Reforms and the Road Ahead by Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (Penguin); and History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present by Thula Simpson (Penguin).
The fiction finalists are: The Promise by Damon Galgut (Umuzi); An Island by Karen Jennings (Karavan Press); Children of Sugarcane by Joanne Joseph (Jonathan Ball Publishers); Junx by Tshidiso Moletsane (Umuzi); and All Gomorrahs Are the Same by Thenjiwe Mswane (Blackbird Books).
The winners will each receive R100,000 and will be announced later in the year.
* See Lifestyle for more.
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