LITTLE SUNS by Zakes Mda WINS THE SUNDAY TIMES FICTION PRIZE

LITTLE SUNS by acclaimed South African writer Zakes Mda has won the country’s Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize 2017. The prize seeks to showcase “writing of rare style and imagination, stories that chose the personal over the political, and themes that are fresh and provocative.” This is the second time that Zakes Mda has won this premier national prize, having won the inaugural award in 2001 for HEART OF REDNESS.

The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize was decided by a judging panel consisting of radio personality Africa Melane and Love Books founder Kate Rogan, chaired by journalist and author, Rehana Rossouw. The judges said that LITTLE SUNS was a “novel of rich, magical African imagery.” They applauded Mda for “bringing history to glorious life, in writing that is unique to him.” ‘Zakes Mda is on song with this book,” said one judge, “it brings people from our past gorgeously to life.’

You can read the full text of Zakes’ Mda’s powerful acceptance speech here about the important role of fiction in finding truth and fighting corruption: “The truth of fiction can give context and shed new insights on the stories unearthed by your investigative reporting. It gives them longevity and digestibility. Fiction is even more essential in this age when shamelessness and impunity among the ruling elite and ‘corruption fatigue’ in the populace are leading South Africa to perdition.”

LITTLE SUNS begins in 1903. A lame and frail Malangana – 'Little Suns' – searches for his beloved Mthwakazi after many lonely years spent in exile. Mthwakazi was the young woman he had fallen in love with twenty years earlier, before the assassination of Magistrate Hamilton Hope began a war that ripped the two of them apart.

Intertwined with Malangana's story is the account of Hope – a colonial magistrate who, in the late nineteenth century, was undermining the local kingdoms of the Eastern Cape in order to bring them under the control of the British. It was he who wanted to coerce Malangana’s king and his people, the amaMpondomise, into joining his battle – a scheme Malangana’s conscience could not allow. Based on real historical events – after these frontier wars were quelled, Zakes Mda’s own ancestors were exiled to Lesotho – Mda has drawn on published accounts and the oral stories of family members and local praise poets, woven together with his uniquely vigorous prose, historical insight and humour.

Umuzi published in Southern Africa, and Jacaranda Books will publish on their Global Classics list in 2018.

The Barry Ronge Fiction Prize is awarded as part of the Sunday Times Literary Awards and along with its twin prize, the Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction, is one of South Africa’s most prestigious prizes. The winner goes home with R100,000. Other shortlisted books included Kopano Matlwa's PERIOD PAIN and Yewande Omotoso's THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR.

Zakes Mda is one of South Africa’s pre-eminent writers, and many of his era-defining plays and novels are hailed as classics of the literary canon. He divides his time between South Africa and the U.S., working as a professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University, director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust in Sophiatown, and dramaturge at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. He is a patron of the Etisalat Prize.

Visit Zakes' website. 

Zakes on Twitter.

Praise for Zakes Mda:

‘The great South African novelist of his generation, a writer rich in both imagination and ironic political attitude.’ The Philadelphia Inquirer

 ‘A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration’ – New York Times

‘It’s a different kind of South African literature, a South African magical realism …I can’t wait to read more’. Barbara Kingsolver on WAYS OF DYING

‘In novel after novel, Zakes Mda seems to have cultivated a mode of writing in which the realistic and the magical co-exist with unruffled ease.’ – Harry Garuba, Independent

'Zakes Mda is among the most acclaimed exponents of a new artistic freedom. His fiction has a beguiling lyricism and humour.' – Maya Jaggi, The Guardian

Zakes Mda’s LITTLE SUNS on the rise in South Africa

Zakes Mda will be in South Africa in February to talk about his striking new novel LITTLE SUNS.  Among other events, he’ll take part in a discussion with Nakhane Touré as part of the Literary Crossroads series at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg on 9 February, sure to be a fascinating and lively evening.

 LITTLE SUNS begins in 1903. A lame and frail Malangana – 'Little Suns' – searches for his beloved Mthwakazi after many lonely years spent in Lesotho. Mthwakazi was the young woman he had fallen in love with twenty years earlier, before the assassination of Hamilton Hope ripped the two of them apart.

Intertwined with Malangana's story, is the account of Hamilton Hope – a colonial magistrate who, in the late nineteenth century, was undermining the local kingdoms of the Eastern Cape in order to bring them under the control of the British. It was he who wanted to coerce Malangana’s king and his people, the amaMpondomise, into joining his battle – a scheme Malangana’s conscience could not allow.

Zakes Mda's fine new novel LITTLE SUNS weaves the true events surrounding the death of Magistrate Hope into a memorable story of love and perseverance that transcends exile and strife. 

Penguin Random House’s Umuzi imprint won a heated auction for Southern African rights to LITTLE SUNS, and have produced a beautiful edition. You can read an extract from the novel here.

Zakes Mda’s previous novel RACHEL’S BLUE won the University of Johannesburg Prize 2014, and you can learn more about that and read the first chapter of the novel here.  It is published in South Africa by Kwela, and Seagull Press will bring out an edition for the UK and the US in February.

Zakes Mda was born Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda in the Eastern Cape in 1948. He spent his early childhood in Soweto and finished his school education in Lesotho, where he joined his father in exile. His forebears were also exiled from Qumbu to Lesotho after the assassination of Hamilton Hope. Mda has studied and worked in South Africa, Lesotho, the United Kingdom and the United States, and is a prolific writer of plays, novels, poems, and articles for academic journals and newspapers. His creative work includes paintings, and theatre and film productions and several of his novels like WAYS OF DYING and THE HEART OF REDNESS are much-loved South African classics. His memoir SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID was published by FSG in the US and Penguin in South Africa in 2011.

Zakes Mda is a recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University’s Department of English.

Zakes also has a great following on social media – you can join his +77,000 followers here.

THE FOLLY published in the US by Archipelago today

Ivan Vladislavić’s THE FOLLY is published in the US today by Archipelago. The novella was originally published twenty years ago, heralding the arrival of a unique and surprising voice. It was read then as an evocative allegory on the rise and fall of apartheid, but continues to strike new chords, its haunting characters speaking strange truths to our world. Umuzi published in South Africa and And Other Stories publish in the UK in November. 

Mr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when an eccentric squatter named Nieuwenhuizen arrives on the vacant plot next door, with a scheme to build an elaborate mansion. Slowly but surely the stranger's charm and persuasive language draws Malgas into "the plan". Grimly humorous and playfully serious, Ivan Vladislavić’s classic first novel is a comic and philosophical masterpiece.

On first publication THE FOLLY was hailed by André Brink as being ‘In the tradition of Elias Canetti, a tour de force of the imagination’ and its new edition has drawn much pre-publication praise:

‘THE FOLLY is mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny — a masterful novel about loving and fearing your neighbor. Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ — Katie Kitamura

‘The rise and fall of ‘the plan’ at the heart of this potent short novel is as brilliant as it is unsettling. Vladislavić writes with spring-loaded precision about universal dreams and local desolation. A fable for the ages, a parable for our time.’ — Laird Hunt

‘Vladislavić’s cryptic, haunting tale echoes Jorge Luis Borges and David Lynch, drawing readers into its strange depths.’ — Publishers Weekly

'Memorable work that never underplays the unpleasant societal tensions that lie below the surface. … THE FOLLY plays out like a berserk blend of fairy tales, the plays of Samuel Beckett, and the films of Jacques Tati.’ – Tobias Carroll, Electric Lit

Ivan Vladislavić will be in the US to promote THE FOLLY and to receive his Windham Campbell Prize later this month. At a ceremony at Yale University he will be awarded one of this year’s nine $150,000 prizes for Fiction, alongside writers Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Geoff Dyer and Edmund de Waal, among others.

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work.  Published in ten international markets, Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes.  His work is included in the GRANTA BOOK OF THE AFRICAN SHORT STORY and Sylph Editions published A LABOUR OF MOLES in the Cahiers Series. His novel DOUBLE NEGATIVE has just been published in Germany by A1 and Osburg have  acquired German rights to THE EXPLODED VIEW.

Visit Ivan's website.

‘EXIT STRATEGY’ BY IVAN VLADISLAVIĆ PUBLISHED BY GRANTA ONLINE

Ivan Vladislavić’s story ‘Exit Strategy’, from his new collection 101 DETECTIVES is published today by Granta Online. You can read the story here http://granta.com/exit-strategy/.

101 DETECTIVES is published by Umuzi in South Africa on 20th April, and in the UK and US by And Other Stories in June. A private-eye convention and a tussle over a Pierneef. A young man’s unsettling experience in the American South and a tragedy off the coast of Mauritius. A bizarre night of industrial theatre and a translator at a loss for words. These are but a few of the fictions in 101 DETECTIVES. A collection of short stories launched his career as a writer: now twenty-six years later, 101 DETECTIVES showcases Vladislavić’s virtuosity as he bends and recasts this literary form in spectacular fashion.

Ivan spoke about the collection on Classic FM last week. Ivan will be appearing at Franschhoek Literary Festival, taking part in the following events:

Friday 15 May

1pm Writers’ libraries Justin Fox asks Belinda Bauer, Imraan Coovadia and Ivan Vladislavić about the books that have influenced them throughout their lives, their reading preferences in general — including how these may have changed at different stages in life, and what influence their reading has had on their writing.

Saturday 16 May

10am Exploring the short form Helon Habila, Jackie Kay, SJ Naude and Ivan Vladislavić talk about the of the short story form, its challenges and rewards, the skills required to master the form, and how they individually have challenged expectations with the stories they’ve written and/or edited.

4pm Authors talking An open discussion, with four authors sitting around a camp fire sharing anecdotes about the writing life. Deon Meyer will lead the discussion, alongside Ivan Vladislavić, Imraan Coovadia and Israeli writer, Eshkol Nevo. 

Sunday 17 May

11.30am The global audience: Who’s reading what you’re writing A discussion about how writing for a global audience influences a writer's choice of subject, style of writing, use of language, etc.

Vladislavić is a novelist, essayist and editor. He lives in Johannesburg where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. His work has won several prizes, including the University of Johannesburg Prize, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction. He was recently awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction.

Praise for Ivan Vladislavić:

‘Ivan Vladislavic is the most significant writer in South Africa today.’ – Focus on Africa

'One of South Africa's most finely tuned observers' – Ted Hodgkinson, The Times Literary Supplement

‘Over the past two decades Ivan Vladislavić’s varied oeuvre has cemented his position as one of the most critically respected novelists currently at work in South Africa.’ – Danny Byrne, Music and Literature