Jennifer Platt, Sunday Times book editor, says, “The shortlisted books always reflect what is happening in our society and this year it’s clear that 'the political' has become 'the personal', and that we have to look at what happened to find out who and where we are today. Both shortlists have authors with strong voices and exceptional writing talent.”

The Alan Paton Award non-fiction shortlist 

  • Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard: Life Among the Stowaways, Sean Christie (Jonathan Ball Publishers);
  • Darwin’s Hunch: Science, Race, and the Search for Human Origins, Christa Kuljian (Jacana Media);
  • Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre, Greg Marinovich (Penguin Books);
  • My Own Liberator: A Memoir, Dikgang Moseneke (Picador Africa); and
  • Letters of Stone: From Nazi Germany to South Africa, Steven Robins (Penguin Books).
The judging panel included Justice Johann Kriegler and Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, chaired by Professor Pippa Green.

The five books on the Alan Paton shortlist span centuries of history, from wartime Berlin to the Cape Town of today, from the Cradle of Civilisation millennia to the Marikana Massacre of recent memory. “These are books that raise critical questions about our past, present, and future,” says Green. “The big question being asked is 'who are we'?”

“Many of the books deal with pain, but in different ways,” says one judge. “Some move quickly over it, others stop and pause. There are great figures here and the marginalised, too. There is the grotesque suffering of the Holocaust as well as more personal, inward suffering of loneliness and loss of identity.”

The Barry Ronge Prize fiction shortlist

  • The Printmaker, Bronwyn Law-Viljoen (Umuzi);
  • Period Pain, Kopano Matlwa (Jacana Media);
  • Little Suns, Zakes Mda (Umuzi);
  • The Woman Next Door, Yewande Omotoso (Chatto & Windus); and
  • The Safest Place You Know, Mark Winkler (Umuzi).
The judging panel, consisting of Africa Melane and Kate Rogan, and chaired by Rehana Rossouw, chose books they felt displayed rare imagination and style and told fresh, provocative stories. “The words strike at the reader’s heart,” says Rossouw. “Many of the characters live on in my mind.”

The winners of the respective awards will be announced at the Sunday Times Literary Awards being held on Saturday, 24 June.

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