Archive for the ‘Awards’ Category
by Amanda on May 23rd, 2013
The Sunday Times shortlist for the Alan Paton Award and the Fiction Prize were announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival on Saturday 18th of May.
Random House Struik is pleased to announce that Killing for Profit by Julian Rademeyer and Rat Roads by Jacques Pauw were both shortlisted for the 2013 Alan Paton Award, both published under the Zebra Press imprint. Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute for Taxi Poetry (published by Umuzi) has been shortlisted for the 2013 Fiction Prize.
Killing for Profit has been described as a good book on a bad subject – the tracking and poaching of rhinoceroses that is threatening to make these animals extinct. A terrifying true story of greed, corruption, depravity and ruthless criminal enterprise…
Rat Roads is a searing story of hardship and survival, and an unforgettable tale of courage and triumph. In this extraordinary book, celebrated journalist Jacques Pauw gives a human face to some of the most tumultuous events in recent African history.
In the world of Imraan Coovadia’s tragicomic novel, The Institute for Taxi Poetry, taxi companies thrive in a single-party state. Taxi poets are admired, sliding-door men rule, professors and politicians strut and fret and connive in a society shaped by violence and ambition, love, and the unsettling power of the imagination.
Other 2013 Alan Paton shortlisted titles include: Biko: A Biography by Xolela Mangcu, The Last Afrikaner Leaders by Hermann Giliomee and Endings and Beginnings by Redi Tlhabi.
Other 2013 Fiction prize shortlisted titles include: The Book of War by James Whyle, For the Mercy of Water by Karen Jayes, The Unlikely Genius of Dr Cuthbert Kambazuma by Chris Wadman, Entanglement by Steven Boykey Sidley.
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 29th.
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by Amanda on Feb 8th, 2012
Praise was heaped on double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius, aka “Blade Runner”, after he was awarded the 2012 Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with Disability Award in a globally televised ceremony on Monday.
Sebastian Coe, Laureus Academy member and chairman of the London Olympic Games Organising Committee, said, “I think what Oscar has done is to really make us challenge our own orthodoxies, our own views about disability.”
Johannesburg – South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius, the athlete known as the ˜Blade Runner” because he runs on carbon fibre blades, was named as the winner of the 2012 Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award on Monday.
In 2011, Pistorius became the first amputee to win a non-disabled World Championship track medal, as a member of the South African silver-medal-winning 4x400m relay team, in Daegu, South Korea.
Gideon Sam, president of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, also expressed his satisfaction at seeing Pistorius win the award. He says Pistorius is a “key weapon” in South Africa’s battle to win even more medals at the Paralympics.
South Africa’s Olympic boss lauded double amputee Oscar Pistorius on Tuesday after the Blade Runner scooped an accolade at the Laureus World Sports Awards.
Gideon Sam, president of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), said the country would rely on Pistorius to boost them up the medals’ table at the London Paralympic games in August.
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by Amanda on Feb 18th, 2010
Random House Struik and Zebra Press are proud to announce that Andrew Brown has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009 for Best Book in the Africa region for his novel, Refuge.
“I am absolutely thrilled that Refuge has been short-listed for the Africa region of the Commonwealth fiction awards and I am humbled and honoured to be associated with the names of all the previously short-listed writers. My writing is ultimately motivated by the invigoration I feel at living in this extraordinary continent – so to be included amongst the writers that Africa has produced, and continues to produce, is recognition beyond my most imaginative dreams,” said Brown.
The Commonwealth awards are aimed at promoting fiction that might otherwise not reach a wider audience, thereby increasing an appreciation of different cultures. Refuge is an attempt to address the seemingly ever-widening gap between locals and ‘foreigners’ within South Africa, and the concerning lack for appreciation that we display for the culture of others. It is my hope that the book will in some small way cause those who read it to reconsider their attitude towards the displaced and desperate bodies that inhabit the stairwells and alleyways around them” says Andrew Brown.
Marlene Fryer, Publisher of Zebra Press, says “We are thrilled about Andrew’s shortlisting. He is one of South Africa’s most exciting novelists, and this recognition is well deserved.”
Refuge will now go through to the next phase of the competition, where the Africa regional judging panel will meet to decide the two regional Commonwealth winners for Best Book and Best First Book. The regional winners will be announced at an event on 11 March in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Andrew Brown won the Sunday Times 2006 Fiction Prize for Coldsleep Lullaby and was shortlisted for the 2009 Alan Paton Award for Street Blues.
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by Amanda on Jun 22nd, 2009
As the countdown begins to the 2009 Sunday Times Literary Awards in Johannesburg on August 1, we look at two of the shortlisted writers.
Tymon Smith spoke to Andrew Brown, who wrote Street Blues to shatter popular misconceptions about the police.
This is your first work of non-fiction. Why did you decide to write about your experiences as a police reservist?
There were a number of motivations for writing the book. I had already started writing down some of my experiences — not to publish them, but to help me work through some of the traumas that I was exposed to while working with the police. After Coldsleep Lullaby did so well and won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, I actually felt quite intimidated at the idea of writing again — I hadn’t until then thought of myself as a writer and so I wrote without any pressure, simply for the enjoyment of it. After the award, it suddenly felt that there were expectations of me and I thought that writing about my own experiences — where I didn’t need to make up the characters or the stories — would be an easy way to get over my anxiety. But a strong motivation was also to try and debunk some of the stereotypes about the police force (many of which I held myself before joining). My 10 years as a reservist have changed the way I see the police; I have enormous respect and fondness for them.
What inspired you to join the reservists?
I had been involved in the UDF in the ’80s and this had given me a real sense that I was contributing towards the community. After 1990, my involvement fell away as I am not a political animal and I couldn’t see myself working in the ANC. I then read an article about my local police station (Mowbray) and how it was battling with a lack of vehicles. I offered to assist, although joining the reservists was the last thing on my mind — my experiences in the ’80s had left me with a huge distrust of the police and I viewed them as dangerous, even in the ’90s. But then a particularly committed inspector, who was the head of the reservists, slowly cajoled me into accepting the idea.
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