The 2024 Sunday Times Literary Awards, presented in collaboration with Exclusive Books, honored South Africa’s finest in fiction and non-fiction literature. The awards ceremony was held at The Melrose Gallery in Johannesburg, where Jonny Steinberg and Andrew Brown emerged as this year’s winners.
In the non-fiction category, Jonny Steinberg took home the prize for Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (published by Jonathan Ball Publishers). This biography captures the complex relationship between Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, shedding light on the personal and political struggles that intertwined with South Africa’s history.
Praising Steinberg pen skills, Journalist and media consultant Kevin Ritchie who chaired the non-fiction award, joined by associate professor and researcher Hlonipha Mokoena, and author and the owner of Book Circle Capital, Sewela Langeni says:
“Telling the tale of a statesman as storied as Nelson Mandela is difficult, combining it with the story of another icon in his wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is remarkably ambitious and fraught with peril. Steinberg does it with skill, courage and sensitivity”
Andrew Brown’s novel The Bitterness of Olives (Karavan Press) won the fiction award. Set amidst the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the book tells a harrowing story of a retired detective from Tel Aviv and a Palestinian doctor from Gaza, both with a shared past, who must set aside their differences to solve a murder.
Chaired by author, playwright and academic Siphiwo Mahala and 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, the judges described Andrew Brown’s Novel as:
“[a] harrowing account of a moment of strife, beautifully told. The author, endowed with vivid imagination coupled with acumen and erudition, deftly immerses the reader in a brutal and bewildering landscape. A wholly sublime narrative, this novel is contemporaneous, daring, complex and aesthetically pleasing”
Each winner will receive a cash prize of R100,000. The awards recognized Steinberg and Brown’s contributions as pivotal landmarks in contemporary South African literature, celebrating their artistic impact and intellectual depth.
Congratulations Steinberg and Brown on this well-deserved win!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
