Wits University Press is proud to be the publisher of the winner in the Fiction Edited Volume category of the annual National Institute of Humanities & Social Sciences (NIHSS) Awards.
The prize was awarded at a sparkling ceremony at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg on Thursday, 14 March to Recognition: An anthology of SA short stories edited by David Medalie.
Recognition is an exciting anthology of short stories in which twenty-two South African writers render the intricate connections of a long history of division; but also of profound (and often surprising) instances of mutual recognition.
The writers whose stories have been selected by academic and writer, David Medalie, use the transformative power of the imagination and the unique appeal of the short story to illuminate aspects of our past and present. Cumulatively their stories tell of a history tainted by misrecognition but not, finally, bound by it.
Wits Press also performed well in the Non-Fiction Edited Collections category, with two books being shortlisted for the award. They are Labour Beyond Cosatu, edited by Andries Bezuidenhout and Malehoko Tshoaedi, and The Unresolved National Question, edited by Eddie Webster and Karen Pampallis.
The HSS Awards recognise and laud the preeminent creative contributions of academics, curators and artists based at participating South African universities who are working to advance the humanities and social sciences. The NIHSS is the only local institute that recognises and indeed celebrates scholarly publishing, alongside fiction and creative works.
Wits Press publisher, Veronica Klipp, responded to the announcements of the winners: “Over the years Wits Press has performed consistently well: in 2017 we had three winners, and in 2018 one.
This excellent performance comes down to everyone in the team holding up their corner in a collective effort, and the results are there for everyone to see.”
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