Alert! The winners of the 2009 Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature – given biennially – were announced last night in Cape Town. Two gold and three silver prizes were dished out – and BOOK SA member Alex Smith was amongst the gong-ees, winning a silver award in the English category. Congratulations to her!
The other winners were Dumisani Sibiya (Zulu – gold), Adeline Radloff (English – gold), Derick van der Walt (Afrikaans – silver) – all pictured above – and Mabonchi Motimele Goodwill (Sotho – silver). All the medalists will have their works published by Tafelberg Publishers, an imprint of the NB group, in October 2010. It’s not certain whether there are other prizes involved (i.e., cold hard cash).
One note of interest is that it’s Sibiya’s third Sanlam win, and van der Walt’s second.
Here’s the release from NB:
Press release
A unique relationship between Sanlam and Tafelberg Publishers has over the years fostered the publication of new titles in youth literature: the biennial Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature. The names of the 2009 winners were announced at a gala evening held at the Officers Club in Century City on Wednesday, 17 March 2010.
The theme of the winning stories, and the evening as a whole, was humour, and there was no shortage of laughs and smiles as the audience was regaled on a choice selection of contrasting tales by master of ceremonies Marc Lottering. The event marked the announcement of the thirteenth Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature after its inception in 1980, when it was initially awarded only every three years, later transforming to a biennial event.
This year, two gold and three silver prizes were awarded. The judges in the English- and Nguni-language categories were especially impressed with the quality of entries they received.
The gold medal winner for 2009 in the Nguni languages category is the Johannesburg author and publisher Dumisani Sibiya, for his story Ngiyolibala Ngife (IsiZulu). The moderator, Professor Bheki Ntuli, recommended that this story be awarded the highest honour. It is the third time that Dumisani Sibiya has received a Sanlam Prize.
In the English-language category debutante Adeline Radloff was named as the winner of a gold prize for her story Sidekick, which the judges described as “a well-plotted adventure story written with a sure hand, a very competent grasp of dialogue, and a fine-tuned sense of irony, which gives the story its rather dark humour”.
The silver award in the English category went to Alex Smith for her story Agency Blue, described as follows by the judges: “Whacky and sophisticated with an accomplished sense of magic realism…sassy and highly original.”
Adeline Radloff and Alex Smith both live in Cape Town.
In the Afrikaans category only one prize was awarded. Derick van der Walt from Pretoria won again, after debuting in 2007 with Lien se lankstaanskoene. This time he received a silver prize for Willem Poprok. The judges were impressed by the flowing story development, fine characterisation and surprising twists that readers will find consistently captivating. They added that “it is an exciting and strong attribute of this story that it also has an underlying theme (that does not impose itself) of diversity between the genders, races and generations”.
In the category for Sotho languages, debutante Mabonchi Motimele Goodwill from Limpopo received a silver prize for his story Ke a hwa, ke a ikepela, written in Sepedi. It is the first time a Sanlam Prize has been awarded to a Sepedi work.
All the winning titles will be available in bookstores from October 2010.
Sanlam and Tafelberg are extremely proud of the positive reaction that the Sanlam Prize elicits. Over the past 13 years many of the winning works have been awarded other prizes, among them the MER Prize for Youth Literature, the Scheepers Prize, ATKV prizes (awarded by young readers), the CP Hoogenhout Award, and M-Net prizes. Some of the works have also been published internationally. Through this competition Sanlam helps develop both readers and authors, providing a much richer literary landscape for young readers.
In her speech, Eloise Wessels, chief executive officer of NB Publishers (of which Tafelberg is an imprint), announced the theme for the next Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature, to be held in 2011. This time round the organisers will be looking for stories in which hope plays a role. The closing date for entries for the next competition is 30 June 2011.
Alert! The longlist for the £30 000-plus-a-statue-named-Bessie Orange Prize for fiction, the UK’s (world’s?) premiere women-writers-only literary award, has been announced.
When I first saw it, my bleary eyes deceived me into thinking that there were no African longlistees. Two rapid-fire tweets from @BOOKSA friend @urbanrenewal quickly put me to rights, however (click here and here). There are in fact at least two writers of African provenance on the list: Nadifa Mohamed, who was born in Somalia and Laila Lalami (@lailalalami), who was born in Morocco. Lalami is currently listed as living in Los Angeles; while Mohamed apparently lives in the UK.
Here are the blurbs for their longlisted books:
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
A stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world. Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of east Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camp, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy’s long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people. A story of displacement and family.
Secret Son by Laila Lalami
When a young man is given the chance to rewrite his future, he doesn’t realize the price he will pay for giving up his past…Casablanca’s stinking alleys are the only home that nineteen-year-old Youssef El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, the film stars flickering on the local cinema’s screen offer the only glimmer of hope to his frustrated dreams of escape. Until, that is, the father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive. A high profile businessman with wealth to burn, Nabil is disenchanted with his daughter and eager to take in the boy he never knew. Soon Youssef is installed in his penthouse and sampling the gold-plated luxuries enjoyed by Casablanca’s elite. But as he leaves the slums of his childhood behind him, he comes up against a starkly un-glittering reality…
Alert! Here’s something to make you smile on a Monday afternoon. Maybe. JM Coetzee recently took part in the Adelaide Writers’ Week Down Under, where he was tasked with introducing several writers, including Britain’s Geoff Dyer (who’s not, gentle reader, to be confused with the Aussie painter Geoffrey Dyer).
Dyer is apparently something of a wit, as his response to Coetzee’s straightforward introduction demonstrates. The question is, did Coetzee find Dyer’s wee (and perfectly harmless) joke quite as amusing as the audience did? On the tape, the master seems as inscrutable as ever:
Ann Donald speaks fondly of Ellen Feldsman’s Scottsboro, particularly as a book that lives up to the quotes on its cover.
Cover blurbs should be read with some scepticism, especially when they casually drop in the name of a famous person, usually used as a marketing trick.
But there are times when the boast actually delivers, as in author Lionel Shriver’s quote published on the jacket of Ellen Feldman’s Scottsboro: “Anyone who wants to appreciate the scale of the miracle that a Black man has been elected president of the United States should sit down with Scottsboro.”
Casey McCormick caught up with Fiona Ingram to chat about her book, The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, self-publishing and a sequel!
Hi Fiona! Please start off by telling us a little about yourself.
I come from a background of theater studies and journalism. My studies and love of travel have combined because after university I spent a year in London at drama school and a year in Paris studying mime. After a few years working in grassroots and community-based theater, I began to write more and gradually moved into journalism. Becoming a children’s author happened by accident after I went on a family trip to Egypt with my mother and two young nephews.
Alert! Authors Marié Heese and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani have won the Commonwealth Writers Prize – Africa region awards, for their novels The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh, which took the Best Book gong, and I Do Not Come to You by Chance, which was acknowledged as Best First Book. Heese and Nwaubani each win £1 000, and go on to compete for the overall prizes of Best Book (£10 000) and Best First Book (£5 000) in May.
The works were each selected from shortlists of seven. The announcement was made in Johannesburg this morning, at the SABC’s Radio Park campus, where Lebo Mashile – a Noma Award winner – presided over addresses by the British High Commissioner, Nicola Brewer, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Africa Region judge Dan Ojwang, chairperson of the Africa Region prize, Elinor Sisulu and the SABC’s Phil Molefe. Brewer and the Acting High Commissioner of India, Shri Shambhu Kumaran, announced the winners.
Heese hails from Stilbaai in South Africa’s Western Cape, and is previously best-known for her children’s books. She publishes in both Afrikaans and English, and is the daughter of the revered Afrikaans author Audrey Blignaut (see her book on her mother, Audrey Blignault: uit die dagboek van ‘n vrou). The Double Crown has emerged as the winner from an extremely strong field, which included the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mark Behr, Zakes Mda and Andrew Brown.
Nwaubani keeps Nigeria’s “Best First Book” winning streak alive, following as she does in the footsteps of a certain Uwem Akpan, who rose to the heights of world literature after winning the prize last year and going on to become an Oprah Book Club choice. “I was born in Enugu, Nigeria,”, she tells African Writing in a comprehensive 2009 interview, “A year later, my parents moved to my hometown, Umuahia. I spent the first part of my childhood years in Umuahia Town—in the GRA, close to the railway station, amongst the expatriates and the Rotary Club members.” In a refreshing development for Nigerian letters, Nwaubani remains based in her home country. Her fellow shortlistees included the likes of Ghana’s Ayesha Harruna Attah and South Africa’s Alistair Morgan.
Speaking on behalf of the CWP Africa Region judges, Dan Ojwang remarked:
It is noteworthy that of the 14 books that made it onto the shortlists this year 10 are by women, which is unprecedented in the history of the CWP, Africa Region.
Given the exceptional depth and variety of books submitted for the prize, it is not possible to reflect at length about every single highpoint. However, there are a few interesting trends about which the panel of judges would wish to comment. These broad trends can be seen in the thematic content of the books, elements of interesting formal innovation and also areas of glaring problems.
One of the remarkable aspects of the entries was the high number that concentrated on human trafficking and migration. The most striking of such novels were Eyo by Abidemi Sanusi (Nigeria), On Black Sisters’ Street by Chika Unigwe (Nigeria) and Refuge by Andrew Brown (South Africa). Reading these entries, the panel of judges was struck by the way slavery, in new guises, has come to speak powerfully of the plight of a generation of Africans who have come of age at a time of destitution, political repression and out-migration—a time when home is all too often quite unhomely. Yet, in spite of the harrowing experiences presented in these novels, none of them resort to the neat endings that readers may expect after being shown so much suffering.
“I am the chosen of the Gods. I have always known that. This knowledge has been the source of my strength and power, and it is the reason why I know that those who now seek my death and desire to usurp my throne shall not succeed.” Marié Heese breathes literary life into the bare historical bones of ancient Egypt’s female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, with breathtaking success. She recuperates ancient Egypt for contemporary gender politics while also providing a highly imaginative account of how life may have been lived in the ancient world. A female leader who realizes her political ambitions in a male world, constantly confronting the challenges of wielding state power at an enormous personal cost, Hatshepsut provides a wonderful protagonist for a modern feminist readership. Hatshepsut’s voice is compelling, direct, insistent and totally believable.
I Do Not Come to You by Chance
“I do not come to you by chance. Upon my quest for a trusted and reliable foreign businessman or company, I was given your contact by the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry ….” There are few e-mail users around the world who have not received a ‘419’ letter promising them a large share of an equally obscene amount of money. We have all wondered about the people behind these scams. Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s novel provides some of the answers. Taking its title from the opening line of an e-mail scam letter, I Do Not Come to You by Chance provides a behind-the-scenes look at the 419 phenomenon, which takes its name from the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code which deals with advance-fee fraud.
You can read the first chapter of Heese’s The Double Crown via the Little White Bakkie preview service below (click here if it doesn’t load). Nwaubani’s UK publisher, Orion, has made chapter twelve of her book available online: click here to read an excerpt from I Do Not Come to You by Chance.
Heese has also compiled “reading notes” on her novel; take a look:
Congratulations to both winners, who now go on to compete with other regional winners for the overall “Best Book” and “Best First Book” awards, to be announced at a ceremony held in Dehli, India, just a few weeks from now.
Something Wicked, South Africa’s first (and only) magazine devoted to horror and science-fiction short stories – which featured breakout works by largely unknown authors and stunning full-page illustrations by a talented group of (primarily) local artists – was started in 2006 by Joe Vaz, in partnership with Vianne Venter. Over the years the publication has had its ups and downs, largely due to financial problems (a major one being the cost of printing on paper skyrocketing to prohibitive levels over the past few years, a problem that has seen even established magazines with massive financial backing folding left and right), but, nevertheless, it gained a patient, understanding, loyal following all over the world due to its focus on quality publishing. The readership understood, and celebrated, what the magazine was trying to achieve and therefore was largely unfazed by the delays and problems.
The same readership now mourns, for the publishers have announced that the current issue, number 10, will be the magazine’s last in print.
The death of the print version requires a suitably macabre eulogy (should someone wish to write one in the comments below), but, equally, Something Wicked’s achievements should be celebrated. The magazine set precedents that will be hard to follow and there are many lessons to be learned – especially for those wishing to traverse the quagmire of niche publishing in this country.
I interviewed Joe to hear his thoughts on the magazine’s successes and (sometimes very gory) hiccups – and on what brought him to the decision to stop printing.
Where did the idea come from and how did it all start?
The idea has been around for decades in magazines such as Cemetery Dance, and Interzone, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Weird Tales. What frustrated me was the fact that there was no South African alternative for these international magazines, the realisation that South African genre fiction writers really had no outlet for their work.
Horror and SF short-story magazines have been around in the UK and the US for decades and yet in 2006 there still wasn’t a single publication of that type in South Africa. So one night around 3am I thought to myself, “Why don’t you do it?” So I did.
Talk us through the typical process of putting an issue together.
It starts with receiving and reading piles and piles of submissions and selecting seven to 10 stories for the magazine. Once the stories have been selected contracts are sent out to the authors and every single story goes through a preliminary edit by Vianne Venter. Every edit is then sent to the authors for their approval and correction.
At the same time art is being commissioned from various artists for each story.
Once the edits come back from the authors the stories go through a second edit and a final approval. They then get proofed by our wonderful proofer, Mark Sykes, who sends us back his edits and notes. Vianne goes through each story one last time and sends me final “to print” versions of all the stories.
By that point I have received final art and have begun prelim layout on the magazine. While all that is going on DVD, game, and book reviews are being sourced and written, columns are being commissioned, and interviews are being conducted.
Once everything is ready to go I will do a final layout followed by one last proof of design and reviews. We then send everything off to the printer and pray we haven’t made any major errors. Once we’ve signed off on the proof the print run goes ahead and the magazines are delivered to the distributors.
Meanwhile the web site is being updated, publicity information is being sent out to magazine reviewers, the e-book version is being laid out, and invoices are being collected and claimed.
Once the magazine is delivered subscriber’s copies are packaged and posted off.
Rinse and repeat.
How did you manage to organise international distribution?
I did some research and found out who was distributing similar types of magazines and contacted the distributor. I then sent them some sample copies, which they sent out to their retailers. They then contacted me with an order request.
The magazine featured both writers and illustrators. Who were some of your favourites and what were some of the success stories?
Again, there are many more, I just can’t remember them all.
Success stories, well there’s Sarah. We were her first published credit. She won our first ever short-story competition and went on to work for Clockwork Zoo as a writer on URBO: The Adventures Of Pax Africa, followed, to date, by two published novels.
We published Abigail Godsell’s Making Waves when she was just 15 years old. For me personally this was always the point of Something Wicked, to be able to inspire and reward a teenage writer and, hopefully, help nurture a talent that she will continue to explore.
In terms of the magazine’s successes, I guess just looking at my subscriber base and realising that we have readers in Japan, Australia, all throughout Europe, the USA, and Canada is pretty fucking awesome. Who knew this little project could reach so far?
What did the readership especially enjoy? I recall at one point you were considering widening the scope, which was horror, to include more science fiction.
It’s all across the board. One of the things that Vianne and I are especially proud of is the diverse reactions we receive to the stories. What it means to us is that there is something in there for everyone. Some of our favourite stories will sometimes not even blip with some readers while others will completely fall in love with them.
We decided to broaden the scope from horror to horror and science fiction simply because I felt it would appeal to a wider market and because I love science fiction.
Something Wicked Issue 1 - cover art by Vincent Sammy
Talk us through the problems you encountered that eventually caused you to have to make the difficult decision to stop printing the magazine.
Finally a simple question.
Something Wicked has only ever had two problems: time and money.
Throughout the history of the magazine it has never turned a profit, though over the last year we have managed to begin to break even. As a result most of the financing of Something Wicked has come from paying work that I do. What that boils down to is when I am earning money I don’t have the time to run the magazine, and when I am not earning money I don’t have the finances to run the magazine.
We cut a huge break in 2008 when the National Arts Council gave us partial funding (which covered about half of the printing costs for five issues) but inevitably a business needs to turn a profit.
Something Wicked has always been Vianne and myself with a lot of help from friends (Sarah Lotz, Digby Young, Erik G, Mark Sykes, and Brett Venter) but the bulk of the work has always been just the two of us and since we’re not getting paid for the work inevitably Something Wicked ends up on the back burner when actual paying work comes through.
In the last year both Vianne’s and my career have picked up significantly, which has completely obliterated our time. So, once again, the magazine ends up suffering.
We are hoping to keep it alive online but at this stage I’m still working out the kinks. It looks like one of the few possibilities is if I step down as editor as it seems to be my lack of time that is slowing the progress of the magazine. We’ll see.
What were some of the most important lessons you learnt about publishing due to this project and what do you think is important for those that might want to start a similar project to know?
Start online.
Seriously, keep your overheads as low as possible. We started in print and right from the beginning we started losing money.
Printing paper is ridiculously expensive (easily 90% of our per-issue cost).
Build up a fan base through online marketing and publishing and then start pulling in the advertisers.
Be prepared to work for free for at least two to three years. Once, and only once you’re turning over a profit, hire some staff to help you out.
Do that for a couple of years and you may be lucky enough to move up to printing on paper.
But to be honest the print industry is an extremely difficult place to start building a business. The work never, ever stops. Every deadline you make is just the beginning of another one. As businesses go, I am glad I started Something Wicked, and I am extremely proud of the work we have done over the last few years, but it’s not a great way to earn money. It is definitely a “for-the-love” business.
Any regrets?
I regret not being able to get back to writers fast enough. I know exactly what it’s like to send a story through to a publication and have to wait months and months for a response. Other than that, none whatsoever. Every mistake is a lesson, every experience, good or bad, is a learning opportunity and the more you learn the better off you are in the future. And if you’re gonna lose a bundle of cash over four years, at least pick a fun way to do it, which this was.
Issue 10 of Something Wicked is available now and some back issues can still be bought online – though, now being collector’s items, they won’t be around for long.
The Mail & Guardian’s chief African lit correspondent weaves VS Naipaul into this terrific profile of French-Ivorian author Tadjo, who teaches at Wits University, and has a new novel coming out in May:
But it’s as a writer rather than as a teacher that Tadjo has found fame. In the past few years Tadjo’s The Blind Kingdom, Queen Pokou and As the Crow Flies — all books originally written in French — have become available to English-speaking readers.
The Blind Kingdom is about a dark, dysfunctional state, which appropriately uses the symbol of the bat. This state, unlike the blind nocturnal mammal, is ramming its head in self-destruct mode into walls and high-rise buildings.
Queen Pokou, winner of the 2005 Grand Prix Litteraire D’Afrique Noire (the premier prize in Francophone African literature), is a beautiful retelling of the founding myths of the Baoule people of Côte d’Ivoire.
It is the story of Abraha Pokou, an 18th-century Ashanti woman, fleeing royal intrigue and murder at the Ashanti court. Pokou and her followers flee, with the royal Ashanti army in pursuit, and come to the great Comoe River. An oracle tells them that to cross, they have to sacrifice a royal child to the river spirits.
Alert! BOOK SA is not entirely convinced of the genuineness of the call, but Granta magazine is apparently looking for help compiling the top African short stories of the past 50 years. The following notice has been found poking out of various online literary thickets:
The Granta Book of The African Short Story
Edited by Helon Habila and Binyavanga Wainaina
This anthology will bring together the best of the best African short stories published in the last 50 years. You are invited to recommend any great short story you have read in a collection, a magazine, online, or heard on the radio, but it has to be by an African author.
The story could be in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, or any major African language, but the final language of publication will be English. Send story title, author’s name, and any publication information you have to help us track your recommended story. Send before April 30, 2010, to: africastories2010@gmail.com
Is it real? BOOK SA will be calling Granta later on to find out. Even if not, however, the exercise of considering Africa’s top shorts might be worthwhile. From South Africa, off the top of my head, I’d recommend Siphiwo Mahala’s “The Suit Continued” and Ivan Vladislavic’s “The WHITES ONLY Bench” as strong contenders.
As a Zimbabwean author, Shimmer Chinodya is often asked about politics, but he prefers to focus on the personal.
“In this part of the world, politics are imposed on you,” Chinodya said at the weekend in discussion with Annie Gagiano at the Woordfees in Stellenbosch. His novels and short stories are not overtly political, but he writes about ordinary people trying to survive, against a political backdrop.
Gagiano pointed out that Chinodya’s novels are very concerned with the intimate details of people’s lives – and often stray into autobiographical territory. “Writers should write about what they know,” Chinodya said. He writes about his own views on life and relationships.
“All my books are painful portraits,” he said. To Chinodya writing is a way to revisit memories of suffering and to create something positive out of pain. He has an “old-fashioned” belief in honest descriptions of scenes and situations.
This is not to say that the author isn’t still commenting on society, however. “A good writer must change you and get you thinking about things,” he said.
“I want shock you, drag you by the neck, say look at this… look at this. That is my plan.”
And what about the politics of writing in English as apposed to his home language, Shona?
Chinodya believes writing in a foreign language is a form of repossession. “English imposed itself on me, now all I can do is to impose my thought process, values and beliefs on English.”
Chinodya draws from two linguistic cultures and comes up with a hybrid. He definitely makes this personal, political language his own.
Casey McCormick caught up with Fiona Ingram to chat about her book, 
