Alert! Andrew Miller has won the 2015 Dinaane Debut Fiction Award – previously the European Union Literary Award – for his novel Dub Steps.
The announcement was made by the Jacana Literary Foundation at a ceremony at the Wits University Writing Centre this evening.
The award is open to “unpublished English-language manuscripts by debut writers” and comes with R35 000 prize money. The winning manuscript is published by Jacana Media.
This year’s judges were Pamela Nichols (head judge), Maureen Isaacson and Fred Khumalo, who won the award in 2005.
The other three finalists were Mia Ardene, for Last Gangster of the Old School, Mark de Wet, for The Forgotten, and Tiisetso Makube, for Doctor Don’t Weep. Makube sadly passed away in February.
Miller is a Johannesburg-based freelance writer and poet, who has worked in the city arts scene for a decade as a commercial writer, specialising in the ghost writing of corporate narratives. He is also a public speaker and performance poet, focusing on ideas such as urban culture, disability, death and the challenges of being South African.
Congratulations to Miller!
Previous winners of the award
The Story of Anna P, as Told by Herself by Penny Busetto (2013)
Khalil’s Journey by Ashraf Kagee (2011/12)
Deeper than Colour by James Clelland (2010)
Saracen at the Gates by Zinaid Meeran (2009)
Till We Can Keep an Animal by Megan Voysey-Braig (2008)
Coconut by Kopano Matlwa (2007)
Bitches’ Brew by Fred Khumalo and Ice in the Lungs by Gerald Kraak (2005)
The Silent Minaret by Ishtiyaq Shukri (2004)