2007 HSBC PEN shortlist

The South African Centre of International PEN (SA PEN), in partnership with HSBC Bank plc and New Africa Books, is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2007 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award.

Kyne Nislev Bernstorff – Going Nowhere
Elizabeth Bishop - Supermarket
Renée Bonorchis – The Summer House
Clare Butcher – Aerial Shots
Malcolm Cumming – The Bam’Žbo By the Dam
Carol-Anne Davids – Nostalgia
Nadia Davids – Safe Home
Petina Gappah – Rotten Row and At the Sound of the Last Post
Claire Gaul – Archives of the Hangman
Karen Jennings – Sarah Begins
Stanley Kenani – For Honour
Deborah Klein – Men and Mermaids
Morne Malan – Jason’Žs Kiss
Steven Marston – The Rebound
Matthew Mbanga – We were meant to live for so much more
Linda McCullogh – How to become a god in three easy steps:
Sean Mitchell – Tears
Christopher Mlalazi – Broken Wings
Fiona Fatima Moolla – The Picture of James Plaatje
Mehluli Nxumalo – Animal Farm
Lee Olivier – Do you have a heart?
Vreniker Pather – Ninema and The Old Man and the Oyster
Henrietta Rose-Innes – Poison
Michelle Sacks – Chronicles of a naked heart
Gill Schierhout – The Day of the Surgical Colloquium Hosted by the Far East Rand Hospital
Alexandra Smith – Buffalo Panting at the Moon
Karlien van der Schyff – Trojan Horse
Richard Walne – The Paint Collector
Carolyn Weir - Collage

These short stories will all be published by New Africa Books in the third volume of new creative writing, entitled African Pens - New Writing from southern Africa 2007. The winners, selected by Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee, will be announced in Cape Town on 24 April 2007 when African Pens – New Writing from southern Africa 2007 is released.

The HSBC/SA PEN award was established in 2005 to encourage young creative writers in the SADC region and offer them an opportunity to launch a literary career. The award targets writers under the age of 40 in the short story genre.

The 2007 award attracted 303 entries from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In a sponsorship arrangement which makes this one of the most financially rewarding literary competitions in southern Africa, HSBC Bank plc, will provide cash prizes totalling US$10 000. The winner of the award will receive $5 000 and those placed second and third will receive $3 000 and $2 000 respectively.

The process to select the winners is undertaken by an editorial board comprising prominent writers and publishers and it is entirely anonymous –Ž no reader or judge is aware of the authors’ names at any stage. After each script is read by three different readers, the editorial board presents its selection to the final judge, J M Coetzee, who chooses the three winning contributions.

SA PEN president, Anthony Fleischer, says: “We aim to promote the series widely in southern Africa in an attempt to encourage young writers to express the vitality and diversity of our new society. We are looking for creative material of universal literary appeal which will make compelling reading.”

International PEN, the literary organisation to which SA PEN is affiliated, has 141 centres throughout the world and has undertaken to publicise the new series in its global journal PEN INTERNATIONAL.