Zimbabwean Writer Wins 2010 Orange Award for New Writers


Irene Sabatini has won the 2010 Orange Award for New Writers (£10,000)with her novel The Boy Next Door.

Di Speirs, Chair of Judges said: “Immediately engaging, vivid and buzzing with energy, The Boy Next Door is the work of a true storyteller. At heart a love story, it is also so much more as, through the experiences of its charismatic protagonist, it charts the first two decades of the emerging Zimbabwe with honesty, humour and humanity.”

This award was launched in 2005 as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations for the Orange Prize for Fiction. It focus is on "emerging talent and the evidence of future potential".

All first works of fiction - including novels, short story collections and novellas, written in English by a woman of any age or nationality and published as a book in the UK - are eligible.

Congratulations, Irene.

Comments

m said…
This is yet another exciting moment, and looking forward to more from sis Irene. But seriously, is Zimbabwean lit on fire or what? I'm not complaining, but something's been happening!
June 12, 2010 at 8:45 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FREEDOM, a poem on South Africa by Afzal Moolla

Freedom The shackles have been cast off. Chains broken. People once squashed, under the jackboot of Apartheid, are free. Free at last! Freedom came on the 27th day in that April, 1994. Freedom from prejudice. From institutionalised racism. From being relegated to second-class citizenship. Freedom came and we danced. We cried. We ululated as we elected our revered Mandela. President Nelson Mandela. Our very own beloved 'Madiba'. Black and white and brown and those in-between, All hues of this rainbow nation, rejoiced as we breathed in the air of freedom and democracy. Today we pause. We remember. We salute. The brave ones whose sacrifices made this day possible, on that 27th day of April, 18 years ago. Today we dance. We sing. We ululate. We cry. Tears of joy and tears of loss. Of remembrance and of forgiveness. Of reconciliation and of memories. Today we pause. We acknowledge the tasks ahead. The hungry. The naked. The destitut
Read more

Abuja Writers' Forum Call for Submissions

Wordsbody has announced the following call for submissions: CAVALCADE literary journal, devoted to publishing original stories, poems,one-act plays, reviews, critical essays and art from an African perspective,will debut in October 2008 with a special edition. The tri-annual journal, a project of the Abuja Writers' Forum (AWF), is now seeking submissions for the second and third editions. Deadline: October 30, 2008 See more details here: Contribute to Cavalcade.
Read more

Importance of African Languages in African Literature

Once in a while, I check  the search engines terms that are driving the most traffic to my blog, Wealth of Ideas, and the searches are often revealing of what kinds of information people are looking for  at any time. Today, of the several interesting ones,  "the importance of African languages in African literature" stood out. It's a topic I too am passionate about. I have written about it before in a post entitled " Language in African Literature ", but even this doesn't begin to cover the most important facts about the issue. Perhaps one day I will write treatise on the topic of language in African literature, and mini posts like this are my way of mapping a project description. But now let's go to some serious stuff on African languages in African Literature. Let me start by saying that I am annoyed by glossaries. Their intent seems to be to appeal to a foreign audience, or, most importantly, to any speakers for whom the glossaried language is forei
Read more