“[The JRB Daily] 2021 Humanities and Social Sciences Awards winners announced—including The JRB’s Makhosazana Xaba and Niq Mhlongo”, Johannesburg Review of Books

The winners of the 2021 Humanities and Social Sciences Awards (HSS Awards) have been announced.

The winners were announced at an awards ceremony at Maropeng at The Cradle of Humankind last night.

The JRB Patron Makhosazana Xaba was a joint winner of Best Non-Fiction Edited Volume for her book Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, while City Editor Niq Mhlongo won Best Fiction Edited Volume for Joburg Noir. Congratulations to them and all the winners!

The Humanities and Social Sciences Awards, now in their sixth year, are co-ordinated by The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and open to South African publishers, scholars based in South African universities and independent artists linked to universities.

The awards honour ‘outstanding, innovative and socially responsive scholarship, creative as well as digital contributions that enhance and advance fields in the humanities and social sciences’ and ‘recognise and celebrate those members of the Humanities and Social Sciences community who are undertaking the necessary work of creating post-apartheid and postcolonial forms of scholarship, creative production, and digital humanities outputs’.

From 36 submissions in 2017, the awards have grown and had 82 submissions this year.

2021 Humanities and Social Sciences Awards winners

Best Fiction Single Authored Volume

Joint winners:

Shortlist

  • Scatterlings by Reŝoketŝwe Manenzhe
  • The Unfamous Five by Nedine Moonsamy
  • Innie Shadows by Olivia M Coetzee
  • Reggie and Me by James Hendry

Best Fiction Edited Volume

Winner

Shortlist

Poetry Award

Winner

Best Non-Fiction Edited Volume

Joint winners

Shortlist

  • Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge, edited by Jonathan D Jansen
  • Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, edited by Makhosazana Xaba
  • Township Economy: People, Spaces and Practices, edited by Andrew Charman, Leif Petersen and Thireshen Govender
  • Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi: History, Criticism, Celebration, edited by Sabata-mpho Mokae and Brian Willan

Best Non-Fiction Biography

Winner

  • Khamr: The Makings of a Waterslams by Jamil F Khan

Shortlist

  • Khamr: The Makings of a Waterslams by Jamil F Khan
  • Dennis Brutus: The South African Years by Tyrone August

Best Non-Fiction Single Authored Monograph

Winner

  • Wentworth: The Beautiful Game and the Making of Place by Ashwin Desai

Shortlist

Creative Collections: Public Performance Art

Winner

  • Virtual JOMBA! Festival (Ismail Mahomed)

Shortlist

  • Virtual JOMBA! Festival (Ismail Mahomed)
  • Infecting the City (ITC) public arts festival 2019 (Jay Pather)
  • Arcade 2019 (Gavin Krastin)
  • Poetry Africa: Poetry as the Voice of Social Change (Ismail Mahomed)

Creative Collections: Visual Art

Winner

  • Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: There are Mechanisms in Place (Nkule Mabaso and Nomusa Makhubu)

Shortlist

  • The Stronger We Become (Nkule Mabaso and Nomusa Makhubu)
  • Intimate Presences/Affective Absences (or, the snake within) (Leora Farber)
  • Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: There are Mechanisms in Place (Nkule Mabaso and Nomusa Makhubu)

Digital Humanities Visualisation or Infographic

Winner

  • Insta-dog: Computing Instagram’s Companion Species (Karli Brittz)

Shortlist

  • Insta-dog: Computing Instagram’s Companion Species (Karli Brittz)
  • GCRO COVID-19 Visualisations and Maps of the Month (Gillian Maree)
  • Activated: The Social Life of Waste/Art (Detlev Krige)

Johannesburg Review of Books