HSBC/SA PEN Literary Awards announced

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

Nobel Laureate J M Coetzee selected the short story Poison by Henrietta Rose-Innes as the winner of the first prize. Coetzee described it as “a story about an imagined ecological disaster to Cape Town refracted through the eyes of a young woman caught up in the exodus from the city.” He added in his Judge’s report: “The behaviour of South Africans under conditions of stress is seen with sympathy and reported in a commendably indirect, understated way; the final effect of the story is surprisingly buoyant.”

Rose-Innes, a Cape Town writer, is currently a Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude artists’ residency in Stuttgart, Germany. A student of archaeology and biological anthropology, she has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and has had two novels published: Shark’s Egg in 2000 and The Rock Alphabet in 2004. In 1996, Rose-Innes won the Cosmopolitan/Vita Short Story competition and in 2001 Shark’s Egg was shortlisted for the M-Net Book Prize.

Petina Gappah, a Zimbabwean writer living in Geneva, Switzerland, received the second prize for her short story At the Sound of the Last Post. Coetzee described the story as “a darkly amusing satirical story about Mugabe’s Zimbabwe tackled with great authority.” Gappah also received a highest mention from JM Coetzee for Rotten Row, another short story she submitted. These were the second and third stories she had ever written.

Gappah works as a lawyer for an organisation that helps developing countries apply and administer WTO trade agreements. Since she entered the HSBC/SA PEN Award, she has published two other stories and is finalising what she hopes will be her first published novel.

Stanley Kenani was awarded the third prize for For Honour, “a deceptively simple story that finds a new and creative way of approaching the tragic subject matter of AIDS.”

Kenani is a Malawian writer and performance poet, who won his first literary award, a national UNESCO essay competition, at 18. The prize was a scholarship to complete high school. While studying for an accountancy degree at the University of Malawi, Kenani won additional prizes for short stories and essays and published one of his short stories in the BBC Focus on Africa magazine. He is president of the Malawi Writers’ Union and acting treasurer of the Pan African Writers’ Association.

J M Coetzee also gave highest mentions to The Day of the Surgical Colloquium by Gill Schierhout and Safe Home by Nadia Davids and singled out five additional short stories that he said would merit inclusion in any anthology drawn from the entries submitted. These are: Tears by Sean Mitchell, Buffalo Panting at the Moon by Alexandra Smith, Archives of the Hangman by Claire Gaul, The Picture of James Plaatje by Fiona Moolla and Animal Farm by Mehluli Nxumalo.

In his Judge’s report, Coetzee commended the standard of the 2007 entries, saying it was “notably higher than in 2006 and 2005.”Entrants confront the unhappier aspects of present-day society with a commendable degree of moral and creative courage. The best of these young writers are on a par with their coevals in the West, and have in addition the priceless advantage that the material they work with is of burning social, political, and human importance.”

Coetzee also praised the organisers of the award and their enlightened patron, HSBC Bank plc, for fostering a literary culture in the region. “The fact that southern Africa can mount a literary competition of its own to be mentioned in the same breath as an Africa-wide competition like the Caine Prize, and can call forth year after year bodies of high-quality entries, should encourage educators and the wider community of culturally aware citizens that the literary culture of the region is, if not flourishing, at least putting forth buds. For the part it has played in fostering this culture, PEN is to be commended - not only PEN South Africa but PEN in its wider embodiment across the continent.”

The HSBC / SA PEN Literary Award was established in 2005 to encourage new 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 received 303 entries from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The three winning stories and 28 others that were shortlisted have been published by New Africa Books in the final of a series of three volumes of new creative writing, entitled African Pens - New Writing from southern Africa 2007.

In a sponsorship arrangement which makes this one of the most financially rewarding literary competitions in southern Africa, HSBC Bank plc has provided cash prizes totaling US$10 000 annually for the three years. The winner of the award receives $5000 and those placed second and third receive $3000 and $2000 respectively.

The process to select the winners is undertaken by an editorial board comprising prominent writers and publishers and it is entirely anonymous - scripts are identified only by number and no reader or judge is aware of the authors’ identities at any stage. After each script is read by three different readers, the editorial board presents its short list to JM Coetzee who chooses the three winning contributions.

International PEN, the literary organisation with which SA PEN is affiliated, was founded in 1921 to advance the cause of literature and defend free expression. International PEN has 141 centres throughout the world and has undertaken to publicise the New Writing from southern Africa series in its global journal, PEN INTERNATIONAL.

The full text of JM Coetzee’s comments is published in African Road.

SADC countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.