/ 29 April 2011

Get your name in now for the South African literary awards

Submissions are open for the sixth South African Literary Awards (Sala), which for the first time include non-fiction authors.

In five years the Salas have honoured 90 South African authors, including Keorapetse Kgositsile, who was crowned national poet laureate, Miriam Tlali, the late Lewis Nkosi, Nontando Helen Jabavu, Phyllis Naidoo, André Brink, Chris van Wyk, Modikwe Dikobe, Maureen Isaacson, Victor Dlamini and Wally Serote.

The awards were founded by wRite Associates in partnership with the national department of arts and culture in 2005 and are supported by the National Arts Council, the Sowetan Aggrey Klaaste Nation Building Projects, the SABC and Nutrend Publishers.

They celebrate literary excellence in depicting and sharing South Africa’s histories, value systems, philosophies and arts in all the 11 official languages of South Africa.

The awards are in 10 categories: the National Poet Laureate Prize, the Lifetime Achievement Literary Award, the Posthumous Literary Award, the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award (for writing in African languages in South Africa), the K Sello Duiker Memorial Award, the Literary Translators Award, the ­Literary Journalism Award, the First-time Published Author Award, the Poetry Award and the ­Chairperson’s Award.

‘We are very excited about the extension of the awards criteria to include non-fiction work. Selections are made from published authors whose primary input is in imaginative writing — fiction as well as creative non-fiction, that is, biographies, autobiographies, letters, speeches and memoirs.

‘This will go a long way in ­acknowledging and honouring ­writers in the non-fiction space, who were hitherto not accommodated in Sala,”, said Morakabe Raks Seakhoa, the Sala project director and ­managing director of wRite
Associates.

Fiction and non-fiction writers must enter their work by June 30 2011. Post it to PO Box 4488, Randburg, 2125, or deliver it to 74 Mimosa Road, Randpark Ridge. For more information, phone: 011 791 3585. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.sala.org.