Jacob Dlamini and Damon Galgut were announced as the winners of this year’s Sunday Times Literary Awards at a gala ceremony at Summer Place in Sandton on Saturday night.
Dlamini, a prominent author, and political commentator, received the 26th Alan Paton Award for his book Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (Jacana Media). The considered, complex and thought-provoking account of betrayal and collaboration under apartheid impressed the judges, who called it an “exceptionally brave, ground-breaking book, learned without being ponderous, with an insistent moral compass”.
Galgut was awarded the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize for his novel Arctic Summer, which the judges called “a brilliant evocation of the life of EM Forster, from an author writing at the height of his powers.”
The awards considered South Africa’s pre-eminent literary accolades celebrate the best of South African nonfiction and fiction from the previous year. Each winner receives R100,000.
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