Via Afrika literary shortlists announced

Press release: Kerneels Breytenbach

The Cape Town publishing house Kwela, celebrating its first decade of publishing this year, has succeeded in producing all the shortlisted titles for the annual Herman Charles Bosman book prize for English fiction.

The three titles are Links by Nuruddin Farah, Our Generation by Zubeida Jaffer and Confessions of a Gambler by Rayda Jacobs.

The winner will be announced at a gala award ceremony in Cape Town at the Table Bay Hotel on 17 June. Apart from the Herman Charles Bosman prize and the three other prizes annually awarded by the Via Afrika publishing group, namely the WA Hofmeyr prize for Afrikaans fiction, the Recht Malan prize for non-fiction and the MER prizes for children’s books and juvenile fiction, the evening will also feature the announcement of the M-Net literary awards as well as the Book Journalist of the Year award.

The evening is hosted by Nasboek and M-Net.

Hein Brand, Chief Executive of Via Afrika, announced the shortlists for the prizes in the Via Afrika stable in Cape Town.

M-Net will be awarding six prizes, one in each of the following five indigenous languages categories: 1) Nguni 2) Sotho 3) Venda 4) Tsonga 5) Afrikaans, and a new category for unpublished works.

For the first time since its inception the Recht Malan shortlist is dominated by English publications, with only one Afrikaans title making the list. The shortlist is In Southern Skies by John Illsley (Jonathan Ball Publishers), The Afrikaners by Hermann Giliomee (Tafelberg), Leefstyl-Bybel vir Vroue, edited by Christina Landman (Lux Verbi.BM), and The Wind Makes Dust by Ben Maclennan (Tafelberg).

Two veteran authors have made the shortlist for the WA Hofmeyr prize for Afrikaans fiction, namely Abraham H de Vries (Tot verhaal kom) and John Miles (Die buiteveld). They are joined by Eben Venter (Begeerte).

As from this year, the MER prize for children’s and juvenile fiction is awarded in both divisions. The shortlist for the MER prize for children’s fiction is Ek is Simon by Martie Preller (Tafelberg), Markus stermuis by Marianna Brandt (Human & Rousseau) and Die geel komplot by George Weideman (Tafelberg).

The shortlist for the MER prize for juvenile fiction is Koning Henry by Carina Diedericks-Hugo (Tafelberg), Ragtime en rocks by Willem van der Walt (Tafelberg) and Spookhuis by die see by Louise Prinsloo (Human & Rousseau).

One new prize will be awarded on 17th June — the Jan Rabie prize for Afrikaans debut novels or short stories. The controversial novel about a white male’s friendships with black prostitutes, Kontrei by Kleinboer, published by Praag, is joined on the shortlist by Aan die ander kant van die stad by Herman Wasserman (Human & Rousseau), Joh’burg, die blues en ’n swart Ford Thunderbird by Vincent Pienaar (Kwela), and Trips by Manie de Waal (Human & Rousseau).

Click here for the complete list of shortlisted names.

Klik hier vir die Afrikaans mediavrystelling.



LitNet: 1 June 2004

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