Literary prizes are just one way of giving outstanding books the recognition they deserve. We, with our partner Exclusive Books, have released our Sunday Times Literary Award shortlists: five non-fiction and five fiction. These books were published between December 1 2020 and December 1 2021. The Booker Prize shortlist was also announced earlier this week, with six fiction finalists. Personally, literary shortlists are probably the best part of the award process. They make me aware of other books out there and help me to narrow down my huge, ever-increasing, to-be-read (TBR) pile.
My advice is to read as many books on our shortlists as you can. I adore our fiction finalists because novels are my jam. We have The Promise by Damon Galgut (Umuzi), which won the Booker Prize last year; An Island by Karen Jennings (Karavan Press), which was longlisted for the Booker last year; Children of Sugarcane by Joanne Joseph (Jonathan Ball Publishers); Junx by Tshidiso Moletsane (Umuzi); and All Gomorrahs Are The Same by Thenjiwe Mswane (Blackbird Books). They are not tomes and all are windows into the different lives lived in our country.
I love our non-fiction list as well because there are books on it I would never have picked up if it wasn’t for our awards. I would not have read Bloody Sunday: The Nun, The Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s Secret Massacre by Mignonne Breier (Tafelberg), nor would I have considered History of South Africa: From 1902 to the Present by Thula Simpson (Penguin Non-fiction). Both are fabulous examples of why one should be open-minded when it comes to reading material. Others that made the shortlist are Scatterling of Africa: My Early Years by Johnny Clegg (Pan Macmillan), The Poisoners: On South Africa’s Toxic Past by Imraan Coovadia (Umuzi) and Land Matters: South Africa’s Failed Land Reforms and the Road Ahead by Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (Penguin Non-fiction). You can see how authors are re-examining our past, trying to make sense of where we are now.
The Booker shortlist surprised a lot of folks. YouTube is filled with cringeworthy, yet funny, reactions to it. Many thought The Colony by Audrey Magee and Trust by Hernan Diaz were shoo-ins. Both are on my TBR pile, including a few that made the shortlist: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo is a sort of reimagining of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, set in a fantasia of Zimbabwe, and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (someone I regard highly said it was one of the most beautiful books they had read this year). Then there’s The Trees, of which the Booker judges said: “A violent history refuses to be buried in Percival Everett’s striking novel, which combines an unnerving murder mystery with a powerful condemnation of racism and police violence”, and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, which sounds amazing and is set in 1980s Sri Lanka. The two I am not sure about are Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout and Treacle Walker by Alan Garner. The former is part of the author’s Lucy Barton series and even though you can read it as a stand-alone, I know I will want to invest in her other books if I take it on. Treacle Walker just seems meh and many reviewers are saying they don’t understand it. But as I have come to realise, it’s best to keep an open mind, so maybe I will put these on the TBR pile.
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