19th edition of SALA honours South African literary talent

The 19th edition of South African Literary Awards (SALA) lived up to its stellar reputation of celebrating excellence when it honoured a number of South African writers, translators and other literary practitioners across 16 categories at a prestigious ceremony held at the Ditsong Museum of Cultural History Museum in Pretoria last night.

Hundreds of dignitaries attended the event, which has been regarded as the Oscars of the literary calendar in South AfricaSALA was founded by wRite associates in 2005 in collaboration with the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. Yesterday’s ceremony was the culmination of many months of sifting through nominees to find the winner in each category.

Commenting on this year’s awards, the organiser and founder of the SALA, Mr Morakabe Raks Seakhoa, was happy that the awards continued the tradition of honouring the best of South Africa’s literary talent as well as promoting writing in indigenous languages. “It has been a long but fascinating process to identify the outstanding nominees from which to select winners. We thank all the judges who worked tirelessly to select the winners. We are also grateful to the support we continue to receive from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture. We look forward to next year’s edition, which will be our 20th anniversary of these important literary awards,” said Seakhoa.  

This year’s awards coincided with the 12th Africa Century International African Writers Conference, which celebrates the 33rd International African Writers’ Day and 30 years of South Africa’s democracy. In 1991, the Conference of African Ministers of Education and Culture in Cotonou, Benin, voted to designate November 7 as International African Writers’ Day, which is currently observed across the continent.

Professor Vuyisile Msila, convener and chairperson of the conference, delivered the keynote lecture at yesterday’s conference. The theme of the conference was “Artificial Intelligence (AI), Social Justice and Social Change: The future of literature in Africa. Quo Vadis?”

Ms Tinyiko Khosa, Acting Deputy Director General: Arts, Culture, Promotion and Development, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, delivered a message the conference on behalf of her Department. She also spoke about her Department’s commitment to supporting the conference and the literary arts in general, hence the long-running partnership with SALA. “The Department of Arts and Culture supports the literary arts sector as part of the cultural and creative industries sectors. It’s, therefore, important to support SALA because it encourages writing excellence. We even have a programme that we call Recognition of Author Excellence. So, SALA and the International African Writers Conference fit very well within the Department’s plans.”

2024 SALA winners