SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARDS LONGLISTS 2018
JUDGES: BARRY RONGE FICTION PRIZE AFRICA MELANE, CHAIR
Melane is the host of the Weekend Breakfast Show on CapeTalk. He is also an ambassador for LeadSA, an initiative of Primedia Broadcasting and Independent Newspapers. Melane studied accounting at the University of Cape Town. He taught a professional development course to first-year students in the faculty of health sciences at UCT. He is the chairman of Modila, a trust that offers educational programmes to raise awareness and provides training in design, innovation, art and entrepreneurship. He serves on the board of Cape Town Opera.
KATE ROGAN
Rogan is the owner of Love Books, an independent book shop in Johannesburg. She has a degree in English from the University of Cape Town and a postgraduate English (Hons) degree from Stellenbosch University. She started her working life as a copywriter at 702, then moved into publishing where she was a commissioning editor. She moved back to radio as a producer and for many years produced The Book Show for Jenny CrwysWilliams. In 2009 she founded Love Books.
KEN BARRIS
Barris is a writer, book critic, NRF-rated academic, poet and photographer. His work has been translated into Turkish, Danish, French, German and Slovenian, and has appeared in about 30 anthologies. He has won literary awards including the Ingrid Jonker Prize, the M-Net Book Prize and, most recently, the University of Johannesburg Prize for his novel Life Underwater. He has published five novels, two collections of poetry and two collections of short stories. The most recent, The Life of Worm & Other Misconceptions, was released last year. Last year Greg Marinovich received the Alan Paton Award for Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre, published by Penguin Books. Zakes Mda was awarded the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize for Little Suns. The winners of the 2018 Alan Paton Award and Barry Ronge Fiction Prize will each receive R100 000. This is the 18th year of the Sunday Times fiction prize, named for arts commentator Barry Ronge, who was one of the founders of our literary awards. 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”.
’South African novelists have once again demonstrated their creative power. This year’s longlist invites the reader to tussle with uncomfortable questions of politics, loss, greed, mythology, heroism and trauma. Vivid storytelling and unflinching characterisation help us to explore vulnerabilities in our quest for love, justice, kindness and compassion. What particularly stands out is the inspiration drawn from the complicated relationship between fact and fiction. Some of the authors deftly draw us in to grapple with contemporary South African issues of corruption, greed and gender disparity. Others bravely take us on a tour of an unkind history and give us a new lens through which to examine our reflections.
Many of the stories are deeply personal, allowing the reader to resonate, on a human level, with the characters’ innermost fears, secret fantasies and darkest sins. The novels will compel you to examine your humanity, question your unease and define your aspirations. The longlist lays bare the complex and confused time we live in. What an incredible joy and honour to have delighted in these stories that pierce our hearts. It is going to be very difficult to choose one winner.”