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The Sunday Times, in partnership with Exclusive Books, has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Sunday Times Literary Awards. 

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Non-Fiction Award, which has, over the decades, spotlighted South Africa’s most incisive, critical, and thought-provoking works of narrative nonfiction.

Kevin Ritchie, Chair of Judges, said:

“It has been another tough though incredibly rewarding session judging the Sunday Times non-fiction award. It is an incredible privilege to be able to read the cream of the country’s non-fiction publishing crop and then have the honour of winnowing the 25 books that were initially chosen, down to just five. It is trite, but so very true, that every book that made it onto the longlist was already a winner by their inclusion. The journey to the five was steep in places with sharp turns and the usual forays down rabbit holes of debate, but the decision was unanimous. The shortlist is a true reflection of what we honestly believe are the best of the non-fiction list of last year.”

Non-Fiction Prize Shortlist

• Breaking Bread: A Memoir by Jonathan Jansen, Jonathan Ball Publishers
• Morafe: Person, Family and Nation in Colonial Bechuanaland 1880s-1950s by Khumisho Moguerane, Jacana Media
• Love and Fury; A Memoir by Margie Orford, Jonathan Ball Publishers
• Hunting the Seven: How the Gugulethu Seven Assassins Were Exposed by Beverly Roos-Muller, Jonathan Ball Publishers
• One Hundred Years of Dispossession: My Family’s Quest to Reclaim Our Land by Lebogang Seale, Jacana Media

Fiction Prize Shortlist

• God’s Pocket by Sven Axelrad, Umuzi
• The Comrade’s Wife by Barbara Boswell, Jacana Media
• Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings, Karavan Press
• The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil by Shubnum Khan, Pan Macmillan
• The Creation of Half-Broken People by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Picador Africa

Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors!

Sarah Adeyemo

Sarah Adeyemo is a poet, writer, editor, and spoken word artiste from Nigeria. She is a fellow of the SprinNG Writing Fellowship. Sarah has work published or forthcoming work in ANMLY Lit, D’Iit Review, The Fiery Scribe Review, Con-Scio Magazine, Sevhage Review, Okiti Literary, Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Pepper Coast Magazine, The Weeds Review, Akpata Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, The Muse Journal, The Weganda Review, Everscribe Magazine, Afrillhill Press, TV-63 Magazine, Poems for Persons Interest, Northern Writers Forum Journal, Eboquills, Rinna Lit. Anthologies, and elsewhere. Her works have been shortlisted for the 2025 Labari Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the 2025 Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize. She serves as the Managing Editor at Words-Empire Magazine, a Poetry Editor at Yarnz Magazine, PFPOI, and a News & Feature writer at the Journal of African Youth Literature (JAY Lit). She was a writing resident of the Rongo Artist Residency in 2026 and is currently a writing resident at the Ebedi International Writers Residency. She is a member of The Swan Collective. A dramatic poet who tweets @sarahinkspires.