The third round of the HSBC/PEN Literary Awards brought in some three hundred entries from young writers of the countries of southern Africa and from southern African writers living abroad. The editorial board of PEN South Africa sifted these entries and compiled a list of thirty-one stories to present to me for judging.

On the basis of a reading of these thirty-one entries, I am happy to report that the standard of work in 2007 is notably higher than in 2006 or 2005. There is less reliance on older, colonial-era models, and fewer authors who narrow down the range of what can be said by adopting a false naïve point of view. Entrants confront the unhappier aspects of present-day society with a commendable degree of moral and creative courage. The best of these young writers are on a par with their coevals in the West, and have in addition the priceless advantage that the material they work with is of burning social, political, and human importance.

The organizers of the awards, PEN South Africa, and their enlightened patron, HSBC Bank, can thus feel satisfied with the evolution of the awards during their first three years. It is clear that news has got around that a serious literary competition, efficiently organized and with substantial prizes, is up and running. It is also clear that, though the competition has thus far been dominated by South Africans, writers from other southern African countries are being read and judged on their own merits. I have no doubt that, in its third year, the competition is attracting entries from the top flight of the region’s young writers.

The fact that southern Africa can mount a literary competition of its own to be mentioned in the same breath as an Africa-wide competition like the Caine Prize, and can call forth year after year bodies of high-quality entries, should encourage educators and the wider community of culturally aware citizens that the literary culture of the region is, if not flourishing, at least putting forth buds. For the part it has played in fostering this culture, PEN is to be commended – not only PEN South Africa but PEN in its wider embodiment across the continent.

As reader and judge of the long list, I am presented with a set of
anonymous manuscripts. Nevertheless, from the internal evidence of the stories I am often able to guess something about the author: what country the author is from, whether the author is male or female (harder to guess than one might think), whether or not the author has English as a first language, what quality of schooling, linguistic and literary, the author has had.

On the basis of this guesswork, it is plain to me that Anglophone white South Africans are overrepresented among the finalists. This is a not wholly desirable state of affairs, but is to be expected. We must hope that with the passing of time it will correct itself. In the meantime, the organizers should ensure that the competition is as widely advertised as possible across the region. Here the media can be of help.

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.

In my final ranking of the six, I gave approximately equal weight to, on the one hand, the social and human weight of the subject the story dealt with, and the degree to which that subject was given expression in a credible narrative voice; and on the other hand the creative skill with which a narrative was fashioned, and the range and subtlety of the language.

Normally, when judging literary works, I do not use numerical scoring, but in this case the closeness of the competition forced me to do so. On a range of a hundred points, I found the finalists bunched together within no more than five points separating the first from the sixth.

First prize goes to “Poison”, a story about an imagined ecological disaster to Cape Town refracted through the eyes of a young woman caught up in the exodus from the city. The behaviour of South Africans under conditions of stress is seen with sympathy and reported in a commendably indirect, understated way; the final effect of the story is surprisingly buoyant.

Second prize goes to “At the Sound of the Last Post”, a darkly amusing satirical story about Mugabe’s Zimbabwe tackled with great authority.

Third prize goes to “For Honour”, a deceptively simple story that finds a new and creative way of approaching the tragic subject matter of AIDS.

In addition, the following three stories deserve the highest mention:

“The Day of the Surgical Colloquium”
“Rotten Row”
“Safe Home”

Besides the six stories listed, at least the following five merit inclusion in any anthology drawn from the entries submitted:

“Tears”
“Buffalo Panting at the Moon”
“Archives of the Hangman”
“The Picture of James Plaatje”
“Animal Farm”

J M Coetzee
7 October 2006