A rich seam of work

THE books that have come our way for this year’s award vary in quality and, interestingly, in intent. They are marked by more than just the standard yield of political, social, economic, cultural, and moral preoccupations which animate our English non-fiction.

For one thing, the list exhibits a slightly Quixotic streak, so that there is a more expansive range of South African experience on offer: dipping deep into mine shafts, or squinting upwards at a feathery natural world, the byzantine fate of carrying a minority identity, or, say, the museum treatment of those at the bottom of this country’s notorious socioeconomic pile.

For another, there is authorship. A striking feature this year is the mix of very well-established writers — versatile wordsmiths who plough more than just one furrow — with lower-profile contenders.

The list contains notably good writing from writers who write well — those who know that words are “like a flower beneath a dancer’s heel”, as the poet Mayakovsky once suggested. The hardy “state we are in” perennial continues to flourish (as well it should) and there is a rich seam of works of biography, autobiography and recollection. This being non-fiction, at least the job of the judges will be made slightly easier by not having to sit in Stockholm and prepare a life-changing phone call. — Bill Nasson