Kwela Books author and NB Publishers staff member Maxine Case has been selected as the African region winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book published in 2006 for her novel, All We Have Left Unsaid. Shaun Johnson won the prize for best book in this region for his book The Native Commissioner, published by Penguin SA.
Arthur Gakwandi, Chair of Judges for the African region comments on the choice of Case’s book:
“Maxine Case tells her story with a disarming simplicity, but with intriguing subtle hints about some dark corners of South African history and politics. The judges were impressed by the author’s unique insight into familial bonds that cut through generational differences and this is what turns the novel into a tale with a universal significance.”
Maxine’s win strikes a blow for female authors everywhere: she was the only female on the short list which consisted of fellow Kwela author Kgebetli Moele for Room 207, Louis Greenberg (The Beggar’s Signwriters, Umuzi), Gerald Kraak (Ice in the Lungs, Jacana) and David Medalie (The Shadow Follows, Picador Africa) and Segun Alofabi (A Life Elsewhere, Jonathan Cape).
She is further the only female short-listed for the overall price and this includes contenders in both categories. The winners in the other regions are as follows: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones – Best Book winner and Tuvalu by Andrew O’Connor – Best First Book winner in the South East Asia and South Pacific region; The Perfect Man by Naeem Murr – Best Book winner and In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar – Best First Book winner in the Europe and South Asia region and The Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams Richards – Best Book winner and Vandal Love by D.Y. Béchard – Best First Book winner in the Canada and Caribbean region.
The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize is now in its 21st year. Established in 1987, it is sponsored and administered by the Commonwealth Foundation with the support of the Macquarie Foundation.
This is the first time that Kwela Books has made it onto the short list for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the first time in five years that a novel published by a South African publisher has been chosen as winner in either of the two prize categories.
