The longlist for the 2024 Sunday Times Literary Awards is out! This year marks the 34rd anniversary of the non-fiction and 23 years of the fiction prize.
The Sunday Times Literary Awards are South Africa's most prestigious annual literary awards for non-fiction and fiction. Presented in partnership with Exclusive Books, they are awarded annually to South African writers by the South African weekly newspaper the Sunday Times. Both winners receive R100,000. The nonfiction award was established in 1989 and the fiction award in 2001.
Nonfiction Prize
The nonfiction prize judging panel includes Kevin Ritchie (chair), Hlonipha Mokoena, and Sewela Langeni. The prize will be bestowed on a book that presents "the illumination of truthfulness, especially those forms of it that are new, delicate, unfashionable and fly in the face of power", and that demonstrates "compassion, elegance of writing, and intellectual and moral integrity".
Check out the non-fiction longlist below:
Daisy de Melker: Hiding Among Killers in the City of Gold by Botha, Ted
Finding Endurance: Shackleton, My Father and a World Without End by Bristow-Bovey, Darrel
Domestic Terror: Intimate Partner Violence in South Africa by Brodie, Nechama
Harry Oppenheimer: Diamonds, Gold and Dynasty by Cardo, Michael
Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom by De Ruyter, André
Durban's Casbah: Bunny Chows, Bolsheviks and Bioscopes by Desai, Ashwin and Goolam, Vahed
Coloured: How Classification Became Culture by Dooms, Tessa and Chutel, Lynsey Ebony
Decolonising the Palestinian Mind by Eid, Haidar
Rassie: Stories of Life and Rugby by Erasmus, Rassie with O'Sullivan, David
The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning by Fairbanks, Eve
Place: South African Literary Journeys by Fox, Justin
Zondo at Your Fingertips by Holden, Paul
Corrupted: A Study of Chronic Dysfunction in South African Universities by Jansen, Jonathan
I am Ella by Jowell, Joanne
Standing Up for Science: A Voice of Reason by Karim, Salim S Abdool
Milk the Beloved Country by Khumalo, Sihle
Son of a Whore by Lategan, Herman
Capture in the Court: In Defence of Judges and the Constitution by Mafora, Dan
The Plot to Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation by Malala, Justice
Dolly Rathebe: Queen of African Jazz Blues & Mbaqanga by Mazibuko-Msimang, Nokuthula
Shoot to Kill: Police and Power in South Africa by McMichael, Christopher
Impossible Skies: Life with My Brother, the Artist Walter Meyer by Meyer, Frans
Statues and Storms: Leading Through Change by Price, Max
The MiG Diaries: Fighter Pilot Memoirs and Accounts of Cuban, SAAF and Angolan Air Combat in Southern African Skies by Reid, Lionel with Lt-Col González Sarría, Eduardo
The Race To Be Myself by Semenya, Caster
Maye! Maye!: The History and Heritage of the Kwa Mai Mai Market by Sithole, Sipho
Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Steinberg, Jonny
The Lion's Historian: Africa's Animal Past by Swart, Sandra
The End of Eden: Wild Nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown by Welz, Adam
Wake Up, This Is Joburg by Zack, Tanya, photography by Lewis, Mark
Dearest MaRiky: A Mother's Journey through Grief, Trauma and Healing by Zondo, Louisa
Fiction Prize
The fiction prize judging panel includes Siphiwo Mahala (chair), Michele Magwood, and Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele. The winning novel should be one of "rare imagination and style … a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction".
Check out the fiction longlist below:
Buried Treasure by Axelrad, Sven
Bridge by Beukes, Lauren
The Weight of Shade by Boyd, Michael
The Bitterness of Olives by Brown, Andrew
Lost Property by Choritz, Megan
At Fire Hour by Gilder, Barry
Flipped by Hawthorne, Tracey
On That Wave of Gulls by Head, Vernon RL
Each Mortal Thing by Heyns, Michiel
The Ghost of Sam Webster by Higginson, Craig
My Side of the Ocean by Irwin, Ron
Glass Tower by Isaacs, Sarah
The Reed Dance Stalker by Makholwa, Angela
Three Egg Dilemma by Morojele, Morabo
The Frightened by Msimang, Lethokuhle
Tunnel by Mulgrew, Nick
A Soft Landing by Mushwana, Wisani
Of Fathers and Fugitives by Naudé, SJ translated by Heyns, Michiel
On the Precipice by Nyatsumba, Kaizer M
Eye Brother Horn by Pitt, Bridget
The Resurrection by Qwabe, Sihle
Little Secrets by Schimmel, Gail
Bloomer by Schlebusch, Anne
The Thing with Zola by Sithole, Zibu
Paperless by Siwisa, Buntu
The Institute for Creative Dying by Thompson, Jarred
Ghost Limb by Van der Merwe, Almini
Decima by Venter, Eben
Mirage by Viviers, David Ralph
Sons of Mud by Vlok Louw, Johan
Congrats to all the longlisted writers!
