Khumisho Moguerane and Shubnum Khan were announced winners of the 2025 Sunday Times Literary Awards, in proud partnership with Exclusive Books, during an in-person event on the rooftop of Hill on Empire, Johannesburg.
Moguerane won the non-fiction award for Morafe: Person, Family and Nation in Colonial Bechuanaland, 1880s–1950s (Jacana Media).
In Morafe, Moguerane explores two generations of the prominent Molema family. They were “border people” who straddled what would become present-day South Africa and Botswana.
The judges said: “this book is a historical landmark, a watershed in the shape and direction of African studies.”
Khan took home the fiction prize for The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil (Pan Macmillan). “Khan captures the history and lived experiences of the South Africa’s Indian community with unparalleled erudition, honesty and sensitivity,” said the judges.
The story unfolds in Akbar Manzil, a haunted and rundown seaside mansion in Durban, which has been around for almost a century. The narrative meanders through different epochs, from the early 20th century to the present.
The non-fiction award criteria asks that 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.
Journalist and media consultant Kevin Ritchie chaired the non-fiction award, joined by associate professor and researcher Hlonipha Mokoena, and author and the owner of Book Circle Capital, Sewela Langeni.
The winner for the fiction prize 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.
The 2025 fiction prize panel was chaired by author, playwright and academic Siphiwo Mahala, joined by award-winning literary journalist, writer and editor Michele Magwood, and medical doctor and co-founder of The Cheeky Natives podcast, Dr Alma-Nalisha Cele.
Each winner will receive R100,000.
Our congratulations to both Moguerane and Khan.
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