SA has a good story to tell

24 April 2014 - 08:35 By ANDILE NDLOVU
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A Stipula fountain pen. File photo.
A Stipula fountain pen. File photo.
Image: Antonio Litterio

For an award-winning author, Diane Awerbuck is surprisingly modest about her chances of winning the Caine Prize for African Writing in July.

The shortlist for the award was announced this week by Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka - and Awerbuck is one of the five authors in line for the R178000 prize, thanks to the short story Phosphorescence from her collection Cabin Fever.

The other nominees are Efemia Chela for Chicken, Zimbabwean Tendai Hunchu for The Intervention, Billy Kahora for The Gorilla's Apprenticeand Kenyan Okwiri Oduor for My Father's Head.

Two of the other nominees' stories are from a single collection: Feast, Famine and Potluck .

Said Awerbuck: "I reviewed Feast, Famine and Potluck and so it's quite disconcerting being in competition with [Oduor and Chela].

"They are very, very good - they're the real deal. I feel very lucky to be shortlisted."

Jackie Kay, the chairman of the Caine Prize judges, said the standard of writing was so high that "it was very difficult for the judges to whittle it down to a shortlist of only five stories".

Awerbuck, the sole South African on the list, won the Commonwealth Best First Book award for Gardening at Night.

The last South African to win the Caine Prize was Henrietta Rose-Innes, for her story Poison.

Phosphorescencedeals with the relationship of grandmother Alice and her suicidal granddaughter, Brittany.

Awerbuck admitted that she was surprised to make it onto the shortlist.

She said that though the story was certainly her favourite from Cabin Fever , which was published three years ago, she's not sure why it "struck a chord internationally".

"I think the stories that make the most difference to judges are imbued with passion and come from a place of longing and feeling. Though the characters are made up, this is a true story."

Awerbuck singled out Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch , which was last week awarded the Pulitzer prize for fiction, as her favourite read of late.

The International Human Rights Book Award jury has awarded Hugh Lewin's Stones Against the Mirror a special prize for increasing awareness of human rights. The memoir, a story of friendship and betrayal in the struggle against apartheid, won the Sunday Times Alan Paton award in 2012.

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