 Sunday Times Literary Awards: the winners
The winners of the two premier book awards, The Alan Paton Award for non-fiction and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, were announced on 24 July. Albie Sachs is the recipient of the Alan Paton Award for The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, and Imraan Coovadi the Fiction Prize for his novel, High Low In-betweenThe Strange Alchemy of Life and Law by Albie Sachs (Oxford University Press, 2009)
From a young age Albie Sachs played a prominent part in the struggle for justice in South Africa. As a result he was detained in solitary confinement, tortured by sleep deprivation and eventually blown up by a car bomb which cost him his right arm and the sight of an eye. His experiences provoked an outpouring of creative thought on the role of law as a protector of human dignity in the modern world, and a lifelong commitment to seeing a new era of justice established in South Africa. High Low In-between by Imraan Coovadia (Umuzi, 2009)
Imraan Coovadia's subtle, humorous and extremely well-written account of the events that follow the violent death of a Durbabn biologist, which forces his wife Nafisa into a world of illegal organ transplants, bribery, and scientific and political controversy. With an acute sense of the disruptions of contemporary South Africa, and its keen feeling for love and loss, High Low In-between reveals Nafisa's relationships with the people close to her and the anarchic currents of life and death she discovers. The shortlisted books for the 2010 Alan Paton Award were: Ways of Staying by Kevin Bloom, Picador Africa
A story at once deeply personl and edifyingly public, Ways of Staying is one man\'s journey into the heart of a country that remains rivenand undefined. From the murder of the author\'s cousin in 2006 to the hills of Zululand mere weeks after the fatal shooting of historian David Rattray, from the critical ruling party showdown at Polokwane in 2007 to the xenophobic attacks of winter 2008, this is a book that ventures far beneath the headlines and into the very marrow of a strange and troubled land. And yet it is in these dark places where few care to look that Kevin Bloom meets men and women who believe that South Africa\'s history can be overcome, men and women who are engaged in the act of imagining some kinder future. A Fork in the Road by Andre Brink, Harvill Secker
Andre Brink grew up in the deep interior of South Africa, as his magistrate father moved from one dusty dorp to the next. From an early age he found in storytelling the means of reconciling the stark contrasts of his world. He tells the story of his love affair with music, art, the theatre, literature and his relationship with remarkable women, like Ingrid Jonker, and encounters with people like Nadine Gordimer, Gunter Grass, Beyers Naude, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Above all, A Fork in the Road is a love song to the country where he was born and where he still lives. Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog, Random House Struik
Begging to Be Black is a book of journeys - moral, historical, philosophical and geographical. These form strands that Krog interweaves and sets in conversation with each other, as she explores questions of change and becoming, coherency and connectedness, before drawing them closer together as the book approaches its powerful end. Experimental and courageous, Begging to Be Black is a welcome addition to Krog\'s own oeuvre and to South African literary non-fiction. The Honour to Serve by James Ngculu, David Philip
James Ngculu was one of the mass of young people inspired by the 1976 Soweto Uprising to join Umkhonto we Sizwe in exile to fight against South Africa\'s apartheid regime. They were not in search of a comfortable life, and they did not find one. But like many of his comrades, the young Ngculu found inspiration and education in more than equal measure with frustration and hardship. The Honour to Serve is both his personal story and a fascinating, painstaking history of those aspects of the ANC\'s struggle that formed its context. It is a memoir of his life in exile, accounts of his involvement in ANC\'s military wing, Umkhonto Wesizwe, recollections of various MK operations in Southern Africa, and military training in Europe and other parts of the world. The other Sunday Times Fiction Award shortlisted titles were: This year’s short list announcement included three honorary mentions which went to Johannesburg Transition: Architecture and Society from 1950 by Clive Chipkin; Invaded: The Biological Invasion of South Africa by Leonie Joubert, and Alf Kumalo: Through my Lens by Alf Kumalo. |
