Resokestwe Manenzhe was announced the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award 2020 winner in Johannesburg, South Africa on February 21, 2020.
The Dinaane Debut Fiction Award is a South African prize that aims to promote new southern African fiction that speaks to both a local and international audience. That award, given annually, encourages new writers and new readers by publishing material that would likely otherwise not have been selected – for purely commercial reasons – by local publishers of literature. It was founded in 2004 as the European Union Literary Award before changing its name in 2015/2016. Some of the previous winners of the award have been Fred Khumalo, Kopano Matlwa, and Mubanga Kalimamukwento.
The 2020 edition of the prize started with a callout for entries before the shortlist was announced by judges Rehana Rossouw, Jennifer Malec and Christopher Thurman. In the shortlist were Christopher by Nozuko Siyotula, Scatterlings by Resokestwe Manenzhe, and Sleeping Naked by Julia Landau.
The overall winner was revealed at Exclusive Books Rosebank, Johannesburg this past week as Resokestwe Manenzhe for her manuscript Scatterlings. Manenzhe gets the prize money of R35,000 and the book will be published by Jacana Media.
Long story short, I have a novel coming out in September. It’s called “Scatterlings.” pic.twitter.com/pxvrf2PWpa
— rešoketšwe waa’manenzhe (@avatar_reso) February 21, 2020
Speaking about the winning entry prize judge Jennifer Malec said, “Scatterlings is a brilliant piece of writing, telling a story seldom told in South Africa. It is a compelling, original novel, ambitious in its form, with a pioneering depth of research.”
The book will be available to the public in September 2020.
