Programme director
Fellow project partners; the write associates, the National Arts Council, Nutrend Publishers, the Sowetan and the Aggrey Klaaste Nation-building Project
Distinguished guests
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
We are gathered here today, to announce the names of those South Africans who have excelled in their endeavour to contribute to the development of our society, through the power of words.
Indeed, words are a powerful tool through which we can express ourselves and tell our own stories, our pain and happiness as well as our dreams and aspirations.
Most importantly, words can contribute towards building national identity, a more cohesive and better society.
As American Sociologist David Riesman once said; “Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialise or un-socialise us.”
The announcement of the names of the 2009 South African Literary Awards winners, forms part of our ongoing efforts to pay tribute to South African writers who have distinguished themselves as outstanding creators of literature.
These are men and women, black and white, young and old, who have dedicated their lives to preserving our literary heritage for present and future generations.
Through the South African Literary Awards, which we co-founded with the wRite Associates, to tell the South African story to the world.
We expect our writers to tell of our proud history as a people, our extraordinary resilience as a nation, our value systems as well as our triumphs and setbacks.
We expect of them to use words to change negative perceptions about our country but also to be critical about our society.
Using the power of words they must continue to depict us as a nation that has managed to overcome adversity - a nation that has risen above its differences and is firmly on track towards building a truly united, democratic, non racial, non-sexist and prosperous society.
Through the South African Literary Awards we celebrate the work of our writers and encourage them to do more to preserve our proud literary heritage.
During our struggle for liberation, writers contributed immensely to the attainment of freedom.
Through their works, they exposed the injustices of the past and opened the eyes of the world to the sufferings of the majority of the people of South Africa.
Among those writers who fought on the side of the oppressed and used their literary works to seek transformation and change in our country, are some of our literary stalwarts, whom we are proud to have already honoured with the South African Literary Awards.
These include Dr Mongane Wally Serote, poet, novelist and current CEO of the Freedom Park, Professor Keorapetse Kgotsisile, our current National Poet Laureate and Dr Nadine Gordimer, the first and only woman Nobel Prize Winner for Literature in our country and continent.
These brave sons and daughter of our country ensured that their pens become one of the most potent weapons in our struggle for national liberation and social emancipation.
They became the voice of the voiceless and brought hope that; one day the goal of liberation, which sometimes appeared illusive, was within reach.
Most of the brilliant works of these and many writers were banned, forcing them to leave the country of their birth.
Many of them, however, refused to be silenced and continued fight for change.
Today we are a free, democratic and open society because of their selflessness and sacrifices.
To all of you we say; thank you for inspiring us during those dark days.
It is for this reason that we will continue to honour your work with a view, among others, to encourage young writers to use and develop their literary talent for the good of our society.
We therefore applaud the various legacy programmes initiated by the organisers of the awards, aimed at encouraging young, up and coming writers to follow on the footsteps of those already honoured through the awards.
We also encourage those who have been honoured through these awards to continue using their time and works to enrich our country’s literary heritage.
The South African Literary Awards also give us an opportunity to encourage and embrace fully the use of all official languages, especially the use of our indigenous languages.
In this regard, we applaud the organisers of the awards for honouring some of our country’s foremost writers who write in indigenous languages.
These include; Bruce Ngobeni, Ephraim Lesoro, Felix Thuketana, James Moiloa and DBZ Ntuli.
Furthermore, through these awards we acknowledge and honour literary works of the highest quality in our country, thus contributing towards deepening the culture of reading in our society.
This we believe will go a long way towards eliminating the scourge of illiteracy in many of our communities.
Programme director, the South African Literary Awards are a product of a Public, Private Partnership, between us as government and a number of stakeholders from the private sector.
We are encouraged that as a result of this partnership, over the years the awards have grown in stature and have now become a significant national event in the South African literary calendar.
For us as the Department of Arts and Culture, the awards contribute to the realisation of our core mandate; which is to promote the growth and development of literature and languages in South Africa.
We are therefore delighted to be part of this successful partnership which we believe will grow from strength to strength.
We also encourage other private sector role players to join us in this partnership so that together we can do more to support the development of literature and languages in our country.
As government we have on a number of occasions indicated our willingness to use resources at our disposal to leverage private sector funding into strategic sectors including the arts, culture and heritage sector.
It is within this context that we will continue to support Public, Private Partnerships in funding the arts in our country.
These partnerships however need to be properly structured so that our collective efforts can yield maximum benefits in the shortest time possible.
I take this opportunity to acknowledge and say thank you to our fellow partners, the wRite associates, the National Arts Council, Sowetan and Nutrend Publishers for their contribution towards the success of the South African Literary Awards.
Programme director, in order to sustain the momentum we have built in encouraging literary excellence in our country, as the Department of Arts and Culture we have begun a process of consultations with a view to establishing a National Academy for the Arts.
Our ultimate objective is to position the academy as a “centre of excellence” whose purpose is to perfect the artistic talents, especially of our young people in all forms of art.
Through this academy we will provide our young people with an opportunity to become the best at what they do, including in literature production.
We look forward to working with other stakeholders in this endeavour.
A further announcement with regards to the academy will be made as soon as we complete the consultation process.
To the winners we are going to announce today, whom we will be honouring with the South African Literary Awards on 8 December this year, we salute you for your contribution to the advancement of literature in our country.
We trust that you will plant seeds that will produce more of your kind in our future literary harvests.
Congratulations to you all.
I thank you.
Source: Department of Arts and Culture
