The English Academy of Southern Africa is pleased to announce the winners of the Thomas Pringle Awards. The Thomas Pringle Awards recognise writers who have demonstrated extraordinary insights in their work. Two of the three categories run this year have been finalised.

Random House Struik is delighted to announce that its Umuzi imprint has acquired the next two novels by star novelist Lauren Beukes.

Umuzi’s bid won a closely contested auction for southern African rights conducted by Beukes’s agent Oliver Munson of Blake Friedmann Literary Agency in London last week.

The rising trajectory of Cape Town-based author Lauren Beukes started with her first futuristic novel Moxyland (2008) and continued with Zoo City (2010), for which she received the internationally prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award.

Google reported that Facebook hit a trillion page views this month. Writing for the Internet is the key to your company’s online success.

“Storytellers will be the heroes of the 21 st century.” ~Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi.

Alex Smith wins this year’s Booksellers’ Choice Award 2011
Wednesday, 17 August 2011, Woking, UK

Writer, teacher, textile merchant and bookseller, Alex Smith is the winner of this year’s award for: Four Drunk Beauties

Simon Skinner, Sales Director Nielsen BookData, presented Alex Smith with a cheque for Rand 20,000. Nielsen has sponsored the Booksellers’ Choice Award and supported the Sefika Awards for many years. Following the awards presentations, Simon Skinner said: “I was delighted to present the award to Alex Smith and to offer my warm congratulations both to her and to Random House, her publisher. We are proud to support these awards and work with publishers, booksellers and writers to reward writing of a very high calibre. Last year’s winner was John van de Ruit who previously won in 2006 and there has been a string of high profile authors winning this award in the past. We are delighted to be associated with the South African book industry.”

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The novel Wall of Days by debut novelist Alastair Bruce, published by Umuzi in 2010, is heading for big things.

It is being released in the United Kingdom this month and will be launched at the Edinburgh Festival on 18 August 2011. The UK publisher, which has acquired world English rights excluding southern Africa, is Clerkenwell Press. This brand new imprint of the prestigious publisher Profile Books (also owners of Serpent’s Tail and The Economist Books) has selected Wall of Days as one of its three launch titles.