My little love story has come a long way. Since being published in February last year, Mine has appeared on the Exclusive Books Homebru list and won the MER Prize for Youth Fiction. Most recently, it has been nominated for a South African Literary Award (SALA) in the youth literature category.

Being nominated for a SALA is a huge honour. It’s basically being recognised by your country. The SALAs are administered by the wRite associates in partnership with the South African Department of Arts and Culture (DAC). The government.

This is from The Sunday Times:

The main aim of the South African Literary Awards is to pay tribute to South African writers who have distinguished themselves as groundbreaking producers and creators of literature, while it celebrates literary excellence in the depiction and sharing of South Africa’s histories, value systems, philosophies and art as inscribed and preserved in all eleven official languages of South Africa. The awards have become the most prestigious and respected literary accolades in South African literature.

I’m honestly speechless and deeply, deeply honoured. The other shortlisted title in the youth literature category is Vlerke vir Almal by Marion Erskine. Back in 2007, Marion and I were two of the five winners of the SABC/You Magazine I am a writer competition. Both our first novels were published that year. (I wish I could find a picture of how young we were then!)

You can see the full list of nominations here. 

The winning books will be announced in November. Cross your fingers for me!

Update: I won!

The SALAs took place last Thursday 7 November 2019. I’m thrilled to announce that Mine won the SALA for best youth novel. I couldn’t make the awards ceremony in Johannesburg, but I was glued to my phone and updating Twitter every few seconds. When I saw my name, I had to refresh the feed just to be sure.

It’s such a huge achievement and I’m so proud of my little book for all it’s achieved.

Thank you to the wRite associates who founded and act as custodian of
the SALAs in partnership with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture as well as everyone at NB Publishers who have supported me for more than a decade.

My beautiful glass trophy is on its way home from Johannesburg. I can’t wait to have my Sally Fields Oscar moment when it arrives. (I’ll post a video.)