Sunday Times Literary Award Convener Michele Magwood Discusses this Year’s Winners

PEN SA member Michele Magwood is the Contributing Books Editor of the Sunday Times and convener of the Sunday Times Literary Awards. The winners of the awards were announced on Saturday with The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize going to Nkosinathi Sithole for his novel Hunger Eats a Man and the Alan Paton Award going to Pumla Dineo Gqola for her book Rape: A South African Nightmare.

By Michele Magwood

In Susanna Jones’ haunting 2001 novel The Earthquake Bird she introduced the idea of a bird that sings to alert people to the tremors of the coming calamity. It is a more lyrical metaphor than that of the canary in the coal mine, but the idea is the same – an early warning system. The Sunday Times Literary Awards have always served as a barometer of the nation’s concerns and anxieties, a cross-section slice of themes and preoccupations. The non-fiction Alan Paton Award and the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize entries funnel the zeitgeist onto the page. In 2006, for instance, when the bane of HIV/Aids was spreading, the Alan Paton judges insisted on awarding two books the prize: Edwin Cameron’s Witness to Aids and Aidsafari by Adam Levin; in 2013 For the Mercy of Water, Karen Jayes’ bleak, unsettling novel about control of resources and gender violence took the fiction prize.

The image of earthquake birds came to mind on Saturday night when this year’s winners were announced in Johannesburg.

Nkosinathi Sithole was the outsider of the race, if you will, an unknown debut author up against some heavyweight established novelists for the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize: Henrietta Rose-Innes, Craig Higginson, Claire Robertson (a previous winner of the award) and Alastair Bruce. Sithole’s book Hunger Eats a Man had slipped quietly onto the shelves early in February last year, a dead time of the year when the book world is still gathering energy after the Christmas run.

Little was known about the author or the book. The former Penguin head Stephen Johnson remembers it was brought to their attention by Antjie Krog, who had come across it and was championing this unusual new writer. It was picked up for publication just as Penguin was being merged into Penguin Random House Struik, and may have dropped off their marketing radar as the new company bedded down.

It is significant that Sithole wrote the book in Zulu first and then translated it into English himself, because this is what the judges homed in on and responded to: as panel chair Rustum Kozain observed. “This is something entirely new in South African literature, in terms of its language and style. The writing is exceptional in the way it bends English to its own purpose.”

The book highlights poverty and hunger in the rural areas of KZN and is a withering criticism of the vapid promises of both priests and politicians.

In his acceptance speech Sithole – who has a PhD in English Studies and teaches at UKZN – said, wryly, “I think I’m supposed to thank many people but I’m not going to mention them all by name. I’m just going to say thanks to Sunday Times, to Penguin, and to the many people who made this story Hunger Eats a Man possible. Sadly, these are the people who are suffering, the people who are living in poverty. I think, right now, that maybe I should be dedicating the award to them. But I know they would rather have the money than the dedication. I do want to keep the money. So as someone who has lived in poverty I would rather dedicate this award to me, back then when I was living in poverty.”

Later in the evening the audience erupted when feminist academic Pumla Dineo Gqola lifted the Alan Paton Award for her book Rape: A South African Nightmare, a meticulous investigation of the epidemic of sexual violence in the country.

Summing up the judges’ thoughts, chair of the panel Achmat Dangor commented: “This is a fearless book that speaks a powerful truth of our times. Nuanced and cogently argued, it tackles the subject from every possible aspect in an attempt to deal with the unspoken. It’s a timely, fearless and frightening book.”

When Gqola took to the stage she said “I’m pleased to be living in a country where I can write this book, and at a time when I am hopeful, because we are starting to see a shift in how we are talking about rape and gender violence in this country. If my book can contribute and has contributed a little bit to that conversation, and continues to, I thank you.”

She also thanked her publisher Melinda Ferguson whose small imprint MF Books Joburg takes risks and amplifies many women’s’ stories.

Here, then, were two earthquake birds urgently warning us of the calamities of poverty, hunger and empty promises, of the toxic masculinity that pervades our society and its politics.

It must be stressed, though, that it’s not enough to write an “on-trend” book and Paton judge Pippa Green warned specifically about just choosing a “fashionable” subject. Both of the awards criteria emphasise depth and writerly skill. For the Paton award it is “the illumination of truthfulness, those forms of it that are new, delicate, unfashionable and fly in the face of power; compassion; elegance of writing; and intellectual and moral integrity.’ And the Barry Ronge criteria state that the winner should be “a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction”.

Every single book entered is judged against these criteria. This year more than 40 books were submitted for the Paton award; and slightly fewer for the fiction prize. From the entries two longlists of 25 each are selected by the panel chairs and the conveners. Over two lengthy judging sessions they are again examined against the criteria, until the winner is finally chosen.

Both panels are strictly independent. This year the Alan Paton Award was judged by the novelist and activist Achmat Dangor, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke of the University of Pretoria and veteran journalist Pippa Green. The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize panel was headed by the poet Rustum Kozain, former publisher Stephen Johnson and novelist Angela Makholwa.

Michele Magwood is the Contributing Books Editor of the Sunday Times and is a convener of the awards.

(Image courtesy of Books LIVE)