Post-apartheid panorama: 30 years of Sunday Times Literary Awards non-fiction winners

Non-fiction Award criteria: The winner should demonstrate the illumination of truthfulness, especially 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.

1994 — Return to Paradise by Breyten Breytenbach, David Philip Publishers

What a title for that year. In 1973, Breytenbach visited Africa for the first time after 13 years of exile, a journey he described in A Season of Paradise. In 1975, he returned in secret and was arrested and jailed for seven years as a result of his activities on behalf of the ANC. He recounted this in The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist. In Return to Paradise, he explores his African and South African identity after a three-month visit to the country in 1991. Breytenbach does not pretend to have any understanding of what will ultimately happen in South Africa, but with his unique insider/outsider status, he offers an unusual perspective on the country and the continent — one that is controversial, complex and at times painful and comical.

1995 — Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Pan MacMillan

An epic life lived. This is one of the books that will be revered for decades to come. It has been successfully adapted by acclaimed writer Chris van Wyk into a beautiful children’s picture book. No matter your view on the state of the post-rainbow nation, this is an important and inspiring account of hardship, resilience and triumph told beautifully and eloquently by our past leader.

1996 — The Calling of Katie Makanya by Margaret McCord, David Philip Publishers

This moving, illuminating memoir chronicles the life of an extraordinary woman who was born in 1873 in colonial South Africa and lived through the colonial era and the early years of apartheid until her death in 1955. The story of Katie Makanya opens a window on an aspect of South African life seldom represented, revealing the country’s patriarchal culture, customs, community traditions, poverty and hardships. 

1997 — The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985 by Charles van Onselen, David Philip Publishers

A bold and innovative social history, The Seed is Mine concerns the disenfranchised black people who did so much to shape the destiny of South Africa. After years of interviews with Kas Maine and his neighbours, employers, friends and family — a rare triumph of collaborative courage and dedication — Van Onselen recreates the life of a man who struggled to maintain his family in a country dedicated to enriching whites and impoverishing blacks.

1998 — Africa: A Biography of a Continent by John Reader, Penguin

In 1978, paleontologists in East Africa discovered the earliest evidence of our divergence from the apes: three prehuman footprints, striding away from a volcano, preserved in the petrified surface of a mud pan more than 3-million years ago. Out of Africa, the world’s most ancient and stable land mass, Homo sapiens dispersed across the globe. And yet the continent that gave birth to human history has long been woefully misunderstood and mistreated by the rest of the world. In a book as splendid in its wealth of information as it is breathtaking in scope, British writer and photojournalist Reader brought to light Africa’s geology and evolution, the majestic array of its landforms and environments, the rich diversity of its peoples and their ways of life, the devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism, and its recent political troubles and triumphs. 

1999 — Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog, Random House (joint winner)

For more than two years, Krog worked in acute engagement with the many voices that arose in and about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). From the legislative genesis of the TRC, the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, and the revelations from apartheid’s operatives to the appearance of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at the hearings, former president PW Botha’s courthouse press conference, and the commission’s meeting with the media on Robben Island early in 1998, this award-winning poet leads us on an extraordinary odyssey. Country of My Skull captures the complexity of the TRC’s work in a unique personal narrative that was harrowing, illuminating and provocative.

1999 — Bram Fischer: Afrikaner Revolutionary by Stephen Clingman, David Philip Publishers

Fischer’s life has all the drama and intimacy of a story worth telling. Born into a prominent Afrikaner nationalist family, Fischer was a Rhodes Scholar and became a distinguished lawyer, in 1964 leading the defence of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others in the Rivonia Trial. Fischer was soon afterwards sentenced to life imprisonment for his own political activities against apartheid. Before he was eventually apprehended by the authorities, he spent nine months in hiding, in disguise. For a time, he was South Africa’s most wanted man, his cause recognised and celebrated around the world. His is one of those rare lives that weaves together the personal and the political, challenging our understanding of both in a world grappling with issues of identity.

2000 — Mandela: The Authorised Biography by Anthony Sampson, HarperCollins/Jonathan Ball Publishers

Mandela, who emerged from 27 years of political imprisonment to lead South Africa out of apartheid and into democracy, is perhaps the world’s most admired leader, a man who lived his life with exemplary courage and inspired conviction. Anthony Sampson, who knew Mandela since 1951 and was a close observer of South African politics for 50 years, produced the first authorised biography of the ANC leader, an informed and comprehensive portrait of a man whose dazzling image remains difficult to penetrate. 

2001 — A Mouthful of Glass by Henk van Woerden (translated by Dan Jacobson), Jonathan Ball Publishers

A Mouthful of Glass recreates the sad and desperate life of Dimitri Tsafendas, a man who was never sure of what he was and where he stood. One day in 1966, in the chamber of the South African parliament, where he had recently been employed as a messenger, he walked up to Hendrik Verwoerd, the prime minister, and stabbed him to death. Verwoerd was the architect of apartheid, and his was among the most dramatic assassinations in modern history.

2002 — The Dressing Station: A Surgeon’s Odyssey by Jonathan Kaplan, Pan MacMillan

Kaplan has been a hospital surgeon, a flying doctor, a ship’s medical officer and a battlefield surgeon. He has worked in places as diverse as Burma, Kurdistan, America, Mozambique, England and Eritrea. The Dressing Station presents a vivid, moving account of the varied faces of medicine he encountered. In a mixture of reportage, confession and exposition, Kaplan writes about the practice of medicine and its shortcomings, because medicine is not always benign or balanced. At its extremes, Kaplan observes, it is a process of treating the casualties, for life is a war and being a doctor is to serve in it.

2003 — Midlands by Jonny Steinberg, Jonathan Ball Publishers

When a young white farmer is murdered on the dirt road running from his father’s farmhouse to his irrigation fields, journalist Steinberg travels to the beautiful hills of KwaZulu-Natal to investigate. There he finds this death illuminates a great deal about the early days of post-apartheid South Africa. This is a story about the midlands of the heart and the mind, the midlands between possession and dispossession, and the midlands between the past and the present, myth and reality.

2004 — A Human Being Died That Night: A Story of Forgiveness by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, New Africa Books

Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned apartheid death squads, was released on parole in 2015, having been sentenced to more than 200 years behind bars in 1996. Gobodo-Madikizela served as a psychologist on the TRC. As the book opens — in an act of inescapable, multilayered symbolism and extraordinary psychological courage — Gobodo-Madikizela enters Pretoria’s maximum-security prison to meet the man called “Prime Evil”. What follows is a journey into what it means to be human. Gobodo-Madikizela’s experience with and deep empathy for victims of murderous violence, as well as their families and friends, become clear in arresting scenes set during the TRC hearings, in which both perpetrators and victims are given a chance to speak. 

2005 — The Number by Jonny Steinberg, Jonathan Ball Publishers

On June 9 2003, a 43-year-old coloured man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Behind him lay a lifelong career in the 28s, South Africa's oldest and most reviled prison gang. Author Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in the dying months of 2002. By the time Wentzel was released, he and Steinberg had spent more than 50 hours discussing his life experiences. This is an account of their conversations and of the award-winning author’s journey to the places and people of Wentzel’s past. It is a story of modern-day South Africa’s historic events as seen through the eyes of the country’s forgotten people.

2006 — Witness to AIDS by Edwin Cameron, Tafelberg (joint winner)

Part memoir, part thought-provoking analysis, Witness to AIDS is Judge Cameron’s revealing account of living with HIV/Aids. He vividly explores what the condition means — for him as he faces the possibility of a lingering death, and for all of us as we face one of the biggest challenges of our time. Cameron’s life story is one of despair turning to hope. He escaped a tough childhood, some of it spent in a children’s home, to become a prominent human rights lawyer — only to be tested for HIV without his knowledge or consent and abruptly told of his positive status. He did not share this with anyone for many years, suffering unbearable shame, which he argues is the source of the terrible stigma that still clings to HIV/Aids.

2006 — Aidsafari by Adam Levin, Zebra Press (joint winner)

With searing honesty, tender prose and outrageous humour, Levin takes us through the daily trials of living with Aids, moving from promiscuity and dangerous denial to the terrors of imminent mortality as he faces the realities of his disease. This book’s power lies not only in its value as a guide for those coping with life-threatening illnesses, but also in the rich quality of the narrative. Levin journeyed to remote, unimagined places to write The Wonder Safaris, but it is his Aidsafari — the frightening internal journey that kept him bedbound for two years — that ultimately reveals his raw honesty, indomitable passion and remarkable insights about love, lostness and life, including how rarely it fails to surprise us.

2007 — Portrait with Keys: Joburg & what-what by Ivan Vladislavić, Umuzi

This is a book about Johannesburg and one man’s place in it. It’s a provocative, teasing, revealing, analytical and poetic text on the city and the life abounding within it. Marking a new high-water mark in Vladislavić’s writing, Portrait with Keys is a sprawling yet comprehensive portrait of his Joburg. His gaze roams freely across the decades, but the focus falls on the eve of the millennium. This chain of lyrical texts brings together memoir, history, snapshots, meditations and asides on the arts. Portrait with Keys is an extraordinary work, both an oblique self-portrait of the author and a vivid recollection of where we have been all along.

2008 — Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred by Mark Gevisser, HarperCollins/Jonathan Ball Publishers

Gevisser’s biography is a profound psycho-political examination of this brilliant but deeply flawed leader who attempted to forge an identity for himself as the symbol of modern Africa in the long shadow of Nelson Mandela. It is also a gripping journey into the turbulent history and troubled contemporary soul of the country, as the author struggles to make sense of the violence of the past and the confusion of the present. As Mbeki battled with demons ranging from HIV/Aids to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and found his power increasingly challenged by the popular and charismatic Jacob Zuma, The Dream Deferred helps us to better understand our complex country, and especially its post-apartheid and post-Mandela eras. 

2009 — In a Different Time: The Inside Story of the Delmas Four by Peter Harris, Umuzi

It is the final years of Nationalist rule, and four ANC cadres steal across the border into South Africa. They left as students after the Soweto uprising of June 1976, and now they return as soldiers, a specialist unit reporting to Chris Hani. Their mission: to carry out acts of war in the country of their birth. On the other side, a police hit squad operates in deepest secrecy, relentlessly, and a dark conspiracy unfolds. When the four operatives are eventually captured, they face the ultimate penalty. Narrated by their lawyer as the trial progresses, this compelling true story is an insider’s account of one of the most dramatic political court cases of the previous era. It paints a picture — at times poignant, at times devastating — of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. 

2010 — The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law by Albie Sachs, Oxford University Press

After playing an important role in drafting South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution, Sachs was appointed by Nelson Mandela to be a member of the country’s first Constitutional Court. During his term as a judge, he grappled with many of the major issues confronting modern South Africa, as well as the challenges posed to the fledgling democracy as it sought to overcome the injustices of the apartheid regime. Sachs conveys in an intimate fashion what it was like to be a judge in these unique circumstances, how his extraordinary life influenced his approach to the cases before him, and his views on the nature of justice and its achievement through law. The book provides a unique insider’s perspective on contemporary South Africa, as well as a rare glimpse into the workings of a judicial mind.

2011 — The Unlikely Secret Agent by Ronnie Kasrils, Jacana Media

It is 1963. South Africa is in crisis, and the white state is under siege. On August 19, the dreaded security police swoop on Griggs bookshop in downtown Durban and arrest Eleanor, the daughter of the manager. They threaten to “break her or hang her” if she does not lead them to her lover, “Red” Ronnie Kasrils, who is wanted on suspicion of involvement in recent acts of sabotage. Though she comes under intense pressure during interrogation, Eleanor has her own secret to conceal. She has been acting as a clandestine agent for the underground ANC and must protect her handlers and Kasrils at all costs. Astutely, she convinces the police she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and, still a prisoner, is sent to a mental hospital in Pietermaritzburg for assessment. It is here she plots her escape. The Unlikely Secret Agent is the remarkable story of a young woman’s courage and daring at a time of increasing repression in apartheid South Africa. It is told here with great verve and élan by Eleanor’s husband, Kasrils, who eventually became minister of intelligence services in 2004.

2012 — Stones Against the Mirror by Hugh Lewin, Umuzi

Nobody can say it better than Nadine Gordimer: “This is the book that was waiting to be written. There have been many accounts of life in the active struggle against the apartheid regime, but this one is a fearless exploration into the deepest ground — the personal moral ambiguity of betrayal under brutal interrogation — the actual betrayal of the writer by the most trusted associate and closest friend; and the lifetime question of whether one would have betrayed that same friend under such circumstances, oneself. Hugh Lewin is the man to have faced this with the courage of a fine writer. Unforgettable, invaluable in facing the ambiguities of our present, and future.”

2013 — Endings and Beginnings: A Story of Healing by Redi Tlhabi, Jacana Media

When Tlhabi is 11 years old, she meets the handsome and charming Mabegzo. A rumoured gangster, murderer and rapist, he is the feared “jackroller” of the neighbourhood. Against her family’s wishes, she develops a strong connection to him. Tlhabi herself doesn’t understand why she is drawn to Mabegzo and why she feels a brokenness that only Mabegzo can fix. Endings and Beginnings: A Story of Healing is her emotional journey into her past in an attempt to humanise this man whose hollowness mirrored her own, and who was hated by so many when he was alive.

2014 — A Rumour of Spring: South Africa after 20 Years of Democracy by Max du Preez, Zebra Press

In A Rumour of Spring, Du Preez investigates and analyses the progress and lack of progress the country has made during the first 20 years of democracy. He looks at the legacies of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki in a bid to understand how we got here, and examines Jacob Zuma’s presidency to better understand where we are. In the context of blatant corruption, populism and tragedies such as the Marikana massacre, the book considers the state of the ruling party and the opposition, and dissects the big issues that are still afflicting our society, including the state of education, land reform, crime and policing, the judiciary, nationality, and race. An honest and balanced account, A Rumour of Spring tackled the questions asked by ordinary South Africans every day: How are we really doing? What is going on in our country? How should we understand what is happening here? Will things get any better? It is alarming that this book was written 10 years ago.

2015 — Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal by Jacob Dlamini, Jacana Media

“Comrade September” — a member of the ANC and its military wing, MK — was abducted from his hideout in Swaziland by apartheid security forces in August 1986 and taken across the border to South Africa, where he was interrogated and tortured. It was not long before September began telling his captors about his comrades in the ANC. By talking under torture, September underwent changes that marked him for the rest of his life: he went from resister to collaborator, insurgent to counterinsurgent, revolutionary to counter-revolutionary and, to his former comrades, hero to traitor. This is narrative writing at its lyrical best — it is not a morality tale, but rather one that shows the grey areas of our modern political history, addressing the complex issue of black people who betrayed black communities during apartheid.

2016 — Rape: A South African Nightmare by Pumla Dineo Gqola, MF Books Joburg

This landmark book investigates the history and root causes of the epidemic of sexual violence. “This is a fearless book that speaks a powerful truth of our times,” said activist and author Achmat Dangor, who chaired the nonfiction panel that year. When accepting the award, Gqola said, “I am pleased and hopeful to live in a time when [a book such as this can be written], and when these conversations can happen. We are starting to see a shift in our approaches to rape.”

2017 — Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre by Greg Marinovich, Penguin Books

The judging panel was united in its admiration of Marinovich’s account of the Marikana massacre. Drawing on his own exhaustive investigations, eyewitness accounts and the findings of the Marikana commission of inquiry set up by President Jacob Zuma, he reconstructs that fateful day as well as the events leading up to it. It is damning, gripping reportage, the best book by far, said the judges, on this most diabolical event in our recent history.

2018 — The Man Who Founded the ANC: A Biography of Pixley ka Isaka Seme by Bongani Ngqulunga, Penguin Books

Ngqulunga on what sparked his novel: “It always puzzled me that no substantial biography had been written about Seme, even though he had made major contributions to the life and politics of South Africa. Not only was he the founder of the ANC at 30 years old, he started a company that bought land for black settlement in the Eastern Transvaal (which is Mpumalanga today). He was the second black South African to be admitted to practise as an attorney. He established a national newspaper and did many other things. And yet, when he became the president-general of the ANC from 1930 to 1937, he brought it to its knees. I found the paradox of the founder of the ANC nearly killing it when he became its leader quite interesting.”

2019 — Everyone is Present: Essays on Photography, Family and Memory by Terry Kurgan, Fourthwall Books

In this book, Kurgan, an artist and writer, begins with a family photograph taken by her Polish grandfather in 1939 on the eve of World War 2. Presenting this evocative image as a repository of multiple histories, she sets off on a series of meditations on photography that give us startling insights into how photographs work — what they conceal, how they mislead, and what provocations they contain. Each essay takes up the thread of the story of her family’s epic journey across Europe as they fled Nazi occupation until they reached Cape Town. Kurgan demonstrates her sophisticated understanding of a medium that has long engaged her as an artist.

2021 — These Are Not Gentle People by Andrew Harding, Picador Africa

BBC Africa foreign correspondent Harding details the true story of a fatal beating and the deaths of two black men, Simon Jubeba and Samuel Tjixa — suspected robbers — at the hands of white farmers on the outskirts of the small Free State town of Parys. These Are Not Gentle People is a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two — as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption.

2022 — Bloody Sunday: The Nun, The Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s Secret Massacre by Mignonne Breier, Tafelberg

On November 9 1952 — in Duncan Village, East London — police broke up an ANC Youth League meeting by shooting and killing at least eight people and injuring many more. Enraged mobs retaliated by murdering two white people: an insurance salesman and an Irish nun, Sister Aidan Quinlan. She was a medical doctor who lived and worked in Duncan Village. Thereafter, the police shot and killed more than 200 people, according to sources. This is the Bloody Sunday few people know about, and which Breier describes vividly in her book. 

2023 — My Land Obsession: A Memoir by Bulelwa Mabasa, Picador Africa

In My Land Obsession, Mabasa shares her colourful Christian upbringing, framed by the lived experiences of her grandparents, who endured land dispossession in the form of the Group Areas Act and the migrant labour system. Bulelwa’s world was irrevocably altered when she encountered the disparities of life in a white-dominated school. Her ongoing interest in land justice informed her choice to study law at Wits University, with the land question becoming central in her postgraduate studies. When Bulelwa joined the practice of law in the early 2000s as an attorney, she felt a strong need to build on her curiosity about land reform, moving on to form and lead a practice centred on land reform at Werksmans Attorneys.

2024’s winner will be decided at the end of the year, but there is a plethora of recent titles to enjoy. Go to your nearest Exclusive Books store and take a wander about.