The winners of the Sunday Times Literary Awards, in association with Exclusive Books, were announced on Thursday at the first in-person prize-giving since 2019.
Mignonne Breier and Tshidiso Moletsane took top honours at an event held at Olives and Plates in the Hyde Park branch of Exclusive Books, which has partnered with the Sunday Times to sponsor South Africa's most lucrative book prizes.
Breier won the nonfiction award for Bloody Sunday: The nun, the defiance campaign and South Africa's secret massacre (Tafelberg), which documents a 1952 police atrocity in Duncan village.
Chair of judges for the nonfiction prize, Griffin Shea, said: “For a moment when we are trying to figure out how the country, and the world, have ended up such a mess, Breier’s Bloody Sunday reminds us things were always messy ...
"As Njabulo Ndebele said in a speech he gave at the anniversary of the Duncan village massacre: 'The more we tell the story of what we did, we create the possibility that through our efforts we can create the future that we still desire'.”
Tshidiso Moletsane took home the fiction prize for his debut novel Junx (Umuzi).
Chair of the fiction judging panel, Ekow Duker, said the book “stood out in a quadrant all on its own. It is an exceptional novel written in a style that is in your face and brutally honest.”
Each winner receives R100,000.
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