"WHAT are African writers thinking and writing about as the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close?"

Winning stories selected by J.M.Coetzee

What's on the minds of African writers? The South African Chapter of PEN International asked the question, and this volume of collected works holds the answer.

More than 800 pieces of new writing from across the continent flowed in once the call for entries was made for the PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. This collection contains the 34 short stories eventually selected, including the prize-winners and those receiving honourable mentions from final judge JM Coetzee.

This is a contemporary African reading journey that will take you from Algeria to Zimbabwe, with stops along the way in Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Mauritius, Botswana, Mozambique, and South Africa. The writers are young and old, established and unpublished; the subject matter as diverse as Africa itself. It is an African literary journey at this juncture, and it is one to be savoured.

Moral and creative courage marks these new stories from young writers of the SADC region. They say what they want and confront what they must, unconstrained by past notions of what can or should be voiced. African Pens – New writing from southern Africa 2007 is the final collection in a three-year series of best entries to the US$10 000 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award.

“The best of these young writers are on a par with their coevals in the West ... the material they work with is of burning social, political and human importance.
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From the thirty-one stories I read I made a short list of six finalists. The standard of these finalists is very high indeed; any one of them would have been a worthy prize-winner.” Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee - View Media Statement

Elizabeth Bishop, Renée Bonorchis, Clare Butcher, Malcolm Cumming, Carol-Anne Davids, Nadia Davids, Petina Gappah, Claire Gaul, Karen Jennings, Stanley Kenani, Deborah Klein, Morne Malan, Steven Marston, Matthew Mbanga, Linda McCullough, Sean Mitchell, Christopher Mlalazi, Fiona Moolla, Kyne Nislev Bernstorff, Mehluli Nxumalo, Lee Olivier, Vrenika Pather, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Michelle Sacks, Gill Schierhout, Alexandra Smith, Karlien van der Schyff, Richard Walne, Carolyn Weir

The 2006 award attracted 231 entries from Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and selected stories were published in African Road – New writing from southern Africa 2006 in April.

We publish ‘Travels to the Magical Kingdom’, Sean O’Toole’s introduction to his first-prize winning story, ‘The road to Rephile’, followed by the story itself. We also publish the second-prize winning story by Elizabeth Pienaar, ‘Breaking down the house’

African Compass - New writing from southern Africa 2005 is the first title in a three year series of the US $10 000 HSBC/SA PEN Literary award. The award is targeted at young writers who are citizens of any country in the SADC (Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). The chosen genre for the series is a short story and this volume contains a selection of the best from 373 entries. The upper age limit of writers was 40, and their work had to be original, previously unpublished and written in English. The selection process maintained author anonymity; initial readers, members of the editorial board and award judge, Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee, did not know the identity of authors throughout the process. When Antonio, apprentice to Michelangelo, asked how he might emulate the master he was told: 'Draw, Antonio Draw!' We say to young people of our region: 'Write Africa Write!' There must be future 'masters' of the written word in southern Africa and this series is intended to search them out and encourage them in the early days of their careers.

African Compass contains the 2006 Caine Prize for African Writing shortlisted story 'A Joburg story' by Darrel Bristow-Bovey.