M-Net Literary Awards - 14 years of Literary Recognition

Press release

South Africa's leading indigenous literary award, the M-Net Book Prize, has just been re-christened as the M-Net Literary Awards. Since its inception 14 years ago, this M-Net project has established itself as the yardstick of literary excellence in SA.

Previously, entries were open to novelists writing in South Africa's eleven official indigenous languages only. This year, the scope has been broadened to include novels, biographies, theatre scripts, children's books, short stories, poetry and drama. The one strict rule is that novels that have been submitted in past years cannot be considered for this competition.

"We've thrown open the competition this year to more than one form of writing, because it became obvious that people do not express their gift of writing in one form of writing - and the M-Net Literary Awards had only previously recognised novels. This year, we call on all creative writers and say - give us your creative work and we'll reward you!" says Glen Marques, CEO of M-Net.

In addition to all the categories, M-Net will also award one writer, who has made an outstanding contribution to the literary fraternity, with a Life Time Achievement Award. The Life Time Achievement prize will be R10 000.

"We also decided to reward one classic writer who has contributed a lot to South African literature to motivate and encourage young writers to look back and see how rich South Africa is in term of indigenous literary writing," adds Marques.

For the purposes of the M-Net Literary Awards, the Nguni Prize will award literary works written in IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, IsiNdebele or SeSwati; the SeSotho Prize will focus on works written in South SeSotho, Northern SeSotho or SeTswana. The TshiVenda, SeTsonga and Afrikaans categories are the only ones that are awarded separately.

The judging criteria range from literary merit and strong narrative content to accessibility to a broad reading public. All entries will be judged in each category by an esteemed panel of key players in the literary field. Included in the panel will be advisors, Professor Cynthia Marivate (CEO, Pan South Africa Language Board), Mrs Hettie Scholtz (publisher and General Manager of HAUM Literary) and Mr Mothobi Mutloatse (writer and a publisher). Each of the judges holds respectable positions in the Language Departments of different universities around South Africa.

The M-Net Literary Awards will bestow fifteen prizes in total. The overall prize fund is a total of R160 000 in cash. Long format categories i.e. Novels, Biographies and Theatre Scripts will be awarded R20 000; the short format categories i.e. Children's Books, Short Stories and Poetry will be awarded R5 000.

The award ceremony has been merged with the long running Via Afrika Literary Awards, which also aim to encourage the writers to write in their indigenous languages, thus promoting multilingualism. The M-Net Literary Awards aim to encourage the publication of original works in the indigenous languages of the country. This is in line with the Language Clause in the Constitution, which challenges language and communication bodies to promote the use of all the languages of South Africa, and most importantly to nurture previously marginalized indigenous languages.

The closing date is 31 March 2005.

Entry forms can be obtained by calling the Administrator on (011) 686 6052 or via the M-Net website www.mnet.co.za.

For further inquiries please call:
Chuma Siswana
M-Net Publicity Executive
(011) 686 6158

OR

Charmaine Khumalo
Events Manager
(011) 686 6027



LitNet: 29 March 2005

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