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PENGUIN BOOKS SOUTH AFRICA ANNOUNCES A NEW LITERARY AWARD

Penguin Prize for African Writing Update!
10th March 2010
Penguin Books has been both delighted and overwhelmed at the response we received for the Penguin Prize for African Writing. We received an unanticipated number of entries: around 250 manuscripts were submitted for the Fiction award and 50 for the Non-Fiction award, most of which were received just before the cut off date at the end of January. Entries have come from countries all across Africa, including Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi and South Africa.
In our search for the best writing out of Africa, and in light of the astonishing number of entries received, Penguin Books had to extend the assessment time for manuscripts. The announcement of the shortlist will therefore take place in June 2010 and will be displayed on our website. The winners will still be announced in September.
We have been thrilled with the tremendous response to this inaugural prize and wish to express our sincere gratitude to all the writers from across the African continent who put fingertips to keyboards and hit the “send” button in order to get their manuscripts to us on deadline.
Alison Lowry
CEO
See below documents for the fiction and non-fiction prize criteria.
Penguin Prize for African Writing Fiction Criteria
Penguin Prize for African Writing Non Fiction Criteria



























