Mxolisi Nyezwa Wins the 2009 Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry

November 16th, 2009 by Ben - Editor

Alert! The SA English Academy announced, on Saturday evening, that Eastern Cape poet Mxolisi Nyezwa had been named as its Thomas Pringle Award winner for poetry.

The announcement was made by the Pringle Award judges’ chair Amitabh Mitra at the BOOK SA Ban’quet.

Nyezwa, author of New Country (UKZN Press), receives R2000. You can read samples from New Country here.

The Pringle prizes recognise several different kinds of writing and have an unusual structure. Here’s more info on the awards dug up from a previous Pringle post:

THOMAS PRINGLE AWARDS
The Thomas Pringle Awards are sponsored by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund and administered by the English Academy of Southern Africa.
The five categories of the Thomas Pringle Awards, each surveyed by a panel of adjudicators, are:
1) Play, book, film and television reviews in newspapers, and short reviews in magazines:
Considered annually.
Past winners include Shaun de Waal (1997;2001) and Alexander Sudheim (1999).
2) Literary articles or substantial book reviews:
Considered in alternate years (2004 for work published in 2003 and 2002).
Past winners include JM Coetzee (1982;1988) and Njabulo Ndebele (1986).
3) Articles on English in education and the teaching of English:
Considered in alternate years (2005 for work published in 2004 and 2003).
Past winners include Christa van de Walt (1995) and Andre Lemmer (1981).
4) Short stories in periodicals and short plays:
Considered in alternate years (2004 for work published in 2003 and 2002).
Past winners include Nadine Gordimer (1969) and Ivan Vladislavic (1994).
5) Poetry in periodicals:
Considered in alternate years (2005 for work published in 2004 and 2003).
Past winners include Sipho Sepamla (1977) and Tatumkulu Afrika (1991;1993).