THE JUDGES

SYLVIA VOLLENHOVEN - CHAIR Vollenhoven is a writer, journalist and filmmaker whose work has won many awards including the 2016 Mbokodo Award for Literature and the Adelaide Tambo Award for Human Rights in the Arts. Vollenhoven was the SA producer for the BBC mini-series Mandela the Living Legend and is also a Knight Fellow, which is funded by the John S and James L Knight Foundation with additional support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

If there is truth in the assertion that catharsis is the road to healing, then the annual Alan Paton longlist reflects a nation imbibing and dispensing some serious mass medicine. The authors have explored aspects of SA as diverse as corruption, the land question, perlemoen poaching and spousal abuse. There are investigations into crime as well as into the history and significance of Boer war generals or 20th-century music trends.

SA and Zimbabwe’s struggles for freedom are picked apart mercilessly. In the process the Rainbow Nation notion is left wounded, feared dead. We are no longer basking in the indulgent glow of a post-liberation society. The #fallist generation holds up unforgiving mirrors.

About half of the authors are female. One young writer interrogates recent history from a female and spiritual perspective. Another young woman uses the minutiae of personal memorabilia to make the connection between family and global events. This collection of our best contemporary authors are seeking solutions, answering complex questions and proposing new ways of looking at the road we have travelled.