Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - June 18, 2006
Celean Jacobson

The award went to Supreme Court of Appeal judge Edwin Cameron for Witness to Aids and journalist Adam Levin for AidSafari.

The Sunday Times Fiction Prize went to Andrew Brown for Coldsleep Lullaby.

The winners were announced at a gala dinner last night. It was a highlight of the inaugural Cape Town Book Fair, which started yesterday and saw 10000 people stream through the city's International Convention Centre. The fair runs until Tuesday.

The five judges of the Sunday Times Literary Awards concluded, after lengthy deliberation, that Cameron and Levin's books were equally deserving of the Paton award for their courage and searing honesty, reflected in highly personal, albeit different, accounts of facing and coming to terms with Aids.

"The books are both skillfully written, elegant, yet accessible," said awards convenor Michele Magwood, "and the judges believed strongly that both Levin and Cameron displayed exceptional integrity and bravery in laying bare the intimate details of their experience.

"As such both works are of immense value at a time when the de-stigmatisation of Aids is one of the most critical defences in the fight against this disease."

This year's awards mark the entry onto the local literary scene of high-profile books dealing with the Aids pandemic, with three submitted by publishers. The third was Khabzela, by Liz McGregor, about the life of the YFM DJ who died of Aids.

The judges' decision on joint winners highlights the complexity of the experiences of those living with the disease and its effect on people from different walks of life.

Cameron's Witness to Aids is an act of activism by someone very much in the public eye. The only person in public office in Africa who has disclosed his HIV status, the judge tells of coming to terms with his infection, his heart-wrenching decision to go public and his confrontation with his own mortality.

"Cameron takes up the political fight that needed to be taken up. He takes it head on," said Alan Paton judge Sakhela Buhlungu.

In contrast, AidSafari is a frank confession from a journalist and author described as an "exhibitionist and wayfarer" and an "occasional cultural terrorist". It charts Levin's realisation that his exciting but reckless lifestyle was ultimately lethal.

"Levin takes us into the hidden aspects of HIV and raises questions about relationships, sexuality and grappling with these issues," said Buhlungu.

The Sunday Times Literary Awards are considered an important indicator of the state of local publishing and the short-listed books as a barometer of South African concerns.

This year's submissions for the non-fiction prize show a shift from heavyweight fare on political heroes to stories of more personal heroism, such as the short-listed Spring Will Come, by disabled rural artist William Zulu.

In the fiction category, a new generation of South African writers triumphed over more established voices.

Three of the five short-listed authors are relative newcomers and, surprisingly, the likes of Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer and Zakes Mda failed to gain nomination. This is particularly telling considering Ronald Suresh Robert's biography on Gordimer was short-listed. No Cold Kitchen caused a stir after Gordimer withdrew her authorisation of it.

"That the winner of the country's premier fiction prize represents the new guard of English writers underscores the upsurge in high-calibre writing that has been a feature of this year's submissions," said Magwood.

"We have seen new points of view, new tales, new realities, fresh perspectives and our writers embracing a sense of South Africa here and now. All this bodes extremely well for the future of English writing in this country."

The judges were united in their verdict that Coldsleep Lullaby, a murder mystery set in Stellenbosch, "is a finely crafted novel with authentic characters that plays on certain South African stereotypes, only to dispel them".

Judge Andries Oliphant said: "It is an ambitiously conceptualised novel in which contemporary South Africa and its colonial past are narrated along parallel and intersecting lines.

"The writing is precise and poetic in the way in which it draws the reader into the drama of a society and people on a cusp of change."

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