Debut author awarded Sunday Times Fiction Award
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Loading... - Michelle Reiner
- 01 Nov 2022
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This year's Sunday Times Fiction Award has been awarded to debut author Tshidiso Moletsane's Junx.
Moletsane was up against worthy competitors, including Damon Galgut (The Promise, 2021 Booker Prize winner), Joanne Joseph (Children of Sugar Cane), Karen Jennings (An Island) and Thenjiwe Mswane (All Gomorrahs are the Same).
Published by Penguin Random House under the Umuzi Trailblazer imprint, the judges described the book as “A tour de force. Bold, raw and surprisingly elegant Gonzo style writing”.
For 29-year-old Moletsane, the award was a real surprise. “I didn't have any real expectations for it. I believed the literary scene probably wouldn't take too well to the content or the premise. The character is unlikable, there isn't a lesson at the end, the language is coarse, the book is too short,” he says.
He also says that the writing of Junx was part of satisfying a goal that was on his vision board for some years. “Once it got published, I thought, I did it! I did it! I'm done”.
SA’ Catcher in the Rye
“We at Penguin Random House Local Fiction are doing a victory dance,” says Catriona Ross, the book’s editor.
“This is a story that captured our attention back in 2016, when Moletsane first submitted a sample to us. He then lost all his notes in a hijacking, spent the next couple of years reconstructing the novel, and finally resubmitted it.”
Ros says when she I read those first chapters she was sold. “Here was a unique voice, an unnamed, unbelievably cool narrator leading us through a wild night in Joburg with honesty, intelligence and humour.”
Calling it A Catcher in the Rye for this crazy country, Ross says it is a book with the potential to garner a cult following (see the Trevor Noah part!). Read More…
