The Sunday Times Literary Awards have become a litmus test of the nation’s wellbeing, its preoccupations and fears, and are sought after by both publishers and writers. Books are one of the vital pillars of the Sunday Times. The newspaper reveres authors and journalists; those who are committed to truth-telling and holding the powerful to account.
The Sunday Times Literary Awards amplify this, ensuring that such books are celebrated and that fresh new voices are encouraged to write truth to power and spin tales that are quintessentially South African.
The awards showcase the finest in local African writing, featuring inclusive voices chronicling the history and witnessing the stories we tell about our country.
We are once again honoured to partner with Exclusive Books, who provide an environment where local writing and reading is showcased, supported and encouraged. It’s a partnership that works extremely well as both Exclusive Books and the Sunday Times are aligned to recognise the power of the written word and want to shine a light on the outstanding work authors produce.
Batya Bricker, Exclusive Books marketing, loyalty and procurement general manager, says: “Exclusive Books shares the vision of the Sunday Times Literary Awards — to celebrate local writing, our writers and the publishers who publish them. This proud partnership puts South African books centre-stage — in media, in bookstores and everything in between.”
The Sunday Times Literary Awards was founded in 1989, a year of enormous upheaval as the towers of the old order began to topple. Over 35 years, the mission has essentially been to recognise the importance of writers who would come to record and witness, interrogate and challenge the nation. The qualities of the prize would be compassion, honesty and commitment in the sense of seeking to help us understand ourselves.
The Non-fiction Award showcases thought leaders and those who see beneath the surface and who hold our leaders to account. It salutes the memoirists who, through their personal stories, illuminate our society so that we can know ourselves better.
The criteria for the Non-fiction Award: “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.”
In 2001, the Fiction Prize was added with the purpose of encouraging and recognising excellence in novels, with stories that explore our democracy in a different way. Reading is humanising, and it allows us to peek into others’ lives, giving us the wonderful opportunity to have empathy for each other. The prize exposes those books that show us new insights, making us wiser, more accepting, and more aware.
The criteria for the Fiction Prize: “The winner 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.”
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