Human & Rousseau

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About Human & Rosseau

Kwela Books is a well-known small publisher in South Africa. We specialise in African writing, both fiction and non-fiction. Authors that have published with us include the Booker-nominated Achmat Dangor, well-known South African poet and writer Antjie Krog, Anne Landsman, Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah, Kgebetli Moele, Niq Mhlongo, Rayda Jacobs and many more. We also publish a number of leading Afrikaans authors, including Jeanne Goosen, Pat Stamatélos, E. Kotze, Willem Anker and Anchien Troskie.

Kwela's main aim is to broaden the scope of Southern African literature, and to document stories that have not yet been told. About 70% of the work we publish is in English, and the rest is in Afrikaans, but we welcome submissions in both languages. Several of our authors and poets have, since publication with Kwela locally, been published internationally, such as Achmat Dangor, AHM Scholtz, Niq Mhlongo, Elbie Lötter, Ronelda S. Kamfer, Kgebetli Moele and Aher Arop Bol.

Kwela Books was formed in 1994, the same year in which South Africa was declared a democracy. It forms part of the large publishing house, NB Publishers (which includes other imprints such as Tafelberg, Human & Rousseau, Queillerie, Pharos and Best Books), which is owned by Naspers, the largest media group in Africa.

Kwela’s romance imprint, Sapphire Press, was launched in 2010. For more details on Sapphire, please click here.

Recent awards/nominations for Kwela titles include:

  
  • Sifiso Mzobe’s novel, Young Blood, won the 2011 Herman Charles Bosman Award and the 2011 Sunday Times Literary Awards’ Fiction Prize. Sifiso Mzobe has also won the 2011 South African Literary Award for a First-Time Published Author, as well as the 2012 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa.
     
  • HJ Golakai’s novel, The Lazarus Effect, was shortlisted for the 2012 Sunday Times Literary Awards’ Fiction Prize, as well as the 2012 University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for Creative Writing.


  • Linda Rode won the 2012 South African Translators Institute Prize for Outstanding Literary Translation for her translation of Hermione Suttner’s novel Bitter heuning into Afrikaans (from the original English manuscript, Bitter Honey).


  • Finuala Dowling’s novel Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart won the 2012 MNet Literary Award for English Fiction, and was shortlisted for the 2012 University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing.


  • Ingrid de Kok won the 2012 South African Literary Award for Poetry, for her collection Other Signs.


  • Cynthia Jele’s novel, Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best First Book, Africa Region, and the 2011 M-Net Literary Award in the Best Film category.
     
     
  • Zukiswa Wanner’s novel, Men of the South, was short-listed for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Africa Region.

     
  • Sally-Ann Murray’s novel, Small Moving Parts, won the 2010 Herman Charles Bosman Prize, the MNet Literary Award for English Fiction, and was short-listed for the 2010 Sunday Times Literary Awards’ Fiction Prize and the University of Johannesburg Prize for Creative Writing in 2009.

     
  • Finuala Dowling won the 2010 Olive Schreiner Prize for Poetry, for her collection, Notes from the Dementia Ward (released in 2008, co-published with Snailpress).

     
  • Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead was short-listed for the 2010 Sunday Times Fiction Prize, and Moele received the k. Sello Duiker Memorial Prize for English at the 2010 South African Literary Awards (the SALAs). 

     
  • Maya Fowler’s novel, The Elephant in the Room, was short-listed for the 2010 Herman Charles Bosman Prize.

     
  • Odette Schoeman’s novel, Swartskaap, was short-listed for the 2010 Jan Rabie Rapport Prize.

     
  • Diale Tlholwe’s second novel, Counting the Coffins, was awarded the k. Sello Duiker Memorial Prize for English at the 2012 South African Literary Awards. In 2010 Diale Tlholwe won the SALA Award for a First-time Published Author for his novel Ancient Rites (published 2008). .

     
  • Dawn Garisch’s novel, Trespass, was short-listed for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Africa Region.

     
  • Anne Landsman’s novel, The Rowing Lesson, won the 2009 Sunday Times Fiction Prize. 

     
  • Jane Bennet’s Porcupine was short-listed for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best First Book, Africa Region.

     
  • Julia Martin’s A Millimetre of Dust was short-listed for the Recht Malan Prize for English or Afrikaans non-fiction or non-literary works.

     
  • Tobea Brink’s novel, Die hemelklip, published in 2008, was short-listed for the Jan Rabie/Rapport Prize for Innovative Afrikaans Literature for 2008.

     
  • Willem Anker’s Siegfried has won the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for Creative Writing 2008 as well as the Jan Rabie/Rapport Prize for Innovative Afrikaans Literature for 2008.

     
  • Pat Stamatélos’s Die val van die dice was short-listed for the 2008 ATKV Prize for Afrikaans Prose. 

     
  • Rustum Kozain won the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 2006 and the Olive Schreiner Prize in 2007 for his debut poetry collection, This Carting Life

     
  • Maxine Case's novel, All We Have Left Unsaid, was selected as the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for the Best First Book, Africa Region, in 2007.

     
  • Mary Watson received the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2006 for the short story "Jungfrau" in her debut short story collection titled Moss, published in 2004.
     

     

Our Authors

Odette Schoeman Niq Mhlongo Adam Small Simão Kikamba Yvonne Beyers
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