Seven manuscripts have been longlisted for the 2007/08 European Union (EU) Literary Award, selected from 53 original works submitted to the annual competition.
The list is:
Mourning by Karen Williams;
Martin Winter’s Road by AJ Kruger;
Defying the Love Laws by Di Möhr;
The Monkey on the Mountain by Brian Green;
A Long Cut to Paradise by Rhett Williams;
Till We Can Keep an Animal by Megan Voysey-Braig; and
I Am Present by Muthal Naidoo.
Run by the European Union and Jacana Media, the award aims to promote fresh new literature by unpublished writers that speaks in a South African idiom to an international audience. The first of its kind in the world, it is supported by the EU through a number of its representatives in South Africa.
The winner, announced at the Cape Town Book Fair on June 15, receives a R25 000 cash prize. Jacana Media will publish the winning novel and Exclusive Books, also a sponsor of the award, guarantees the novel a place in the Exclusive Books Homebru selection for 2009.
The panel of judges changes annually and is drawn from a broad cross-section of the literary world. Judges do not know the names of the authors who have submitted manuscripts and each entry is assessed solely on merit.
This year’s judges were Darryl Accone, books editor of the Mail & Guardian; Craig MacKenzie, professor of English at the University of Johannesburg and author of books on Bessie Head and the South African short story; and Véronique Tadjo, poet, writer and painter from Côte d’Ivoire who is head of French studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She received the Le Grand Prix d’Afrique Noire for her novel, Reine Pokou (Queen Pokou).
Accone said of the judging process: ‘Engaging with the EU Award entries offers retrospective and prospective approaches to South African lives, histories and stories, and hints not only of where our literature is heading, but also of how it will get there.”
Previous EU Literary Award winners are Kopano Matlwa’s Coconut, Bitches Brew by Fred Khumalo, Ice in the Lungs by Gerald Kraak and The Silent Minaret by Ishtiyaq Shukri. Previous runners-up have also been published: Song of the Atman by Ronnie Govender; Miss KwaKwa by Stephen Simm; All Is Fish by Kirsten Miller; and Sound Bites by Chris Walton. Govender’s Song of the Atman was shortlisted for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Award — Best Book, Africa Region and Kraak’s Ice in the Lungs was a co-recipient of the University of Johannesburg’s Best First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Award — Best First Book, Africa Region.