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Johannesburg - South Africa's literary greats gathered in Franschhoek at the weekend for the shortlist announcement of the Sunday Times Literary Awards.
The shortlisting event saw ten of South Africa's books earmarked as finalists for the 2011 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, celebrating its 22nd year, and the Fiction Prize, its 11th year.
The shortlisted books for the Alan Paton Award are:
Finish & Klaar by Adriaan Basson (published by Tafelberg)
The Unlikely Secret Agent by Ronnie Kasrils (Jacana)
Steeped in Blood by David Klatzow and Sylvia Walker (Zebra)
Fighting for Justice by Jay Naidoo (Picador Africa)
The War for South Africa by Bill Nasson (Tafelberg)
The shortlisted books for the Fiction Prize are:
Not a Fairy Tale by Shaida Kazie Ali (Umuzi)
Deeper than Colour by James Clelland (Jazana)
Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer (Hodder & Stoughton)
Young Blood by Sifizo Mzobe (Kwela)
Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic (Umuzi).
Newspaper columnist, author and convenor of the Platform for Public Deliberation at the University of Johannesburg, Dr Xolela Mangcu, is the chairman of this year's Alan Paton Awards judging panel.
According to Mangcu, the judging process gets more challenging each year as the quality of entries increases. "The shortlist is an excellent example of what the American sociologist C Wright Mills called the sociological imagination.
"This is the kind of imagination that 'enables us to grasp history and biography and the relation between the two within society'. These books bring us to a far more nuanced understanding of the struggle against apartheid as both political and personal," said Mangcu.
For this year's Fiction Prize, "Newcomers sit easily in the company of their more established peers on the 32-title longlist," says Sunday Times books editor Tymon Smith.
"As always, crime writing continues to be a popular genre. The range of crimes and periods of history covered in the crime genre are vast, and there are a number of fascinating detectives and criminals being created by local crime writers."
The overall winners of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and the Fiction Prize will be announced on June 25 at Summer Place in Johannesburg.
The shortlisting event saw ten of South Africa's books earmarked as finalists for the 2011 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, celebrating its 22nd year, and the Fiction Prize, its 11th year.
The shortlisted books for the Alan Paton Award are:
Finish & Klaar by Adriaan Basson (published by Tafelberg)
The Unlikely Secret Agent by Ronnie Kasrils (Jacana)
Steeped in Blood by David Klatzow and Sylvia Walker (Zebra)
Fighting for Justice by Jay Naidoo (Picador Africa)
The War for South Africa by Bill Nasson (Tafelberg)
The shortlisted books for the Fiction Prize are:
Not a Fairy Tale by Shaida Kazie Ali (Umuzi)
Deeper than Colour by James Clelland (Jazana)
Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer (Hodder & Stoughton)
Young Blood by Sifizo Mzobe (Kwela)
Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic (Umuzi).
Newspaper columnist, author and convenor of the Platform for Public Deliberation at the University of Johannesburg, Dr Xolela Mangcu, is the chairman of this year's Alan Paton Awards judging panel.
According to Mangcu, the judging process gets more challenging each year as the quality of entries increases. "The shortlist is an excellent example of what the American sociologist C Wright Mills called the sociological imagination.
"This is the kind of imagination that 'enables us to grasp history and biography and the relation between the two within society'. These books bring us to a far more nuanced understanding of the struggle against apartheid as both political and personal," said Mangcu.
For this year's Fiction Prize, "Newcomers sit easily in the company of their more established peers on the 32-title longlist," says Sunday Times books editor Tymon Smith.
"As always, crime writing continues to be a popular genre. The range of crimes and periods of history covered in the crime genre are vast, and there are a number of fascinating detectives and criminals being created by local crime writers."
The overall winners of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and the Fiction Prize will be announced on June 25 at Summer Place in Johannesburg.
