The shortlist announcement has become a much anticipated calendar event for the country’s literary community, with ten South African writers being acknowledged for their work in both fiction and non-fiction categories, and competing for the Barry Ronge Prize and Alan Paton Award respectively.

Jennifer Platt, the Sunday Times books editor, says the 2016 shortlist finalists represent “books of quality, that take the temperature and pulse of the nation”.

The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize awards outstanding contributions in fiction. 

The judging panel was chaired by Rustum Kozain, a former recipient of the Olive Schreiner Prize, the Ingrid Jonker Prize and the Herman Charles Bosman Award for literature. Kozain notes that the writers are “in control of the mechanics of storytelling and so the storytellers that emerge, and the stories they tell, compel us. And they compel us – seducing us without revealing the seduction – into fictional worlds that are credible because of the quality of the storytelling.” 

The fiction judging panel includes Angela Makholwa-Moabelo and Stephen Johnson.

The 2016 Barry Ronge Fiction Prize shortlist finalists in the Sunday Times Literary Awards are:

Boy on the Wire by Alastair Bruce - Umuzi
The Dream House by Craig Higginson - Picador Africa
The Magistrate of Gower by Claire Robertson - Umuzi
Green Lion by Henrietta Rose-Innes - Umuzi
Hunger Eats a Man by Nkosinathi Sithole - Penguin

The Alan Paton non-fiction judging panel is chaired by playwright, poet, novelist and political activist Achmat Dangor.

“Each of the writers has approached their chosen subject matter with candour and honesty, and do not hesitate to challenge many popular notions that have become ‘accepted truths’ in our daily public discourse,” says Dangor. 

The judging panel includes Tinyiko Maluleke and Pippa Green.

The 2016 Alan Paton Award shortlist finalists in the Sunday Times Literary Awards are:

JM Coetzee and the Life of Writing - David Attwell - Jacana Media
Papwa - Golf’s Lost Legend by Maxine Case - Kwela Books
To Quote Myself - A Memoir by Khaya Dlanga - Macmillan
Rape - A South African Nightmare by Pumla Dineo Gqola - MF Books/Jacana Media
Showdown at the Red Lion - Charles van Onselen - Jonathan Ball Publishers

The winners of the Sunday Times Literary Awards will be announced in Sandton on 25 June 2016.

For more information, visit the website. Alternatively, connect with Sunday Times on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.