Nicholas Hasluck's address, Chairman of the CWP
Address by Justice Nicholas Hasluck 
at the Presentation of the
Commonwealth Writers Prize
Franschhoek Literary Festival, Franschhoek,
Sunday, 18 May 2008
The Commonwealth Writers Prize is organised by the Commonwealth Foundation. The governments comprising the Commonwealth have given the Foundation a mandate to support a wide variety of cultural activities including literature. This year, for the first time, the final program is being held in South Africa in partnership with the Department of Arts and Culture and the Franschhoek Literary Festival. In a moment the Minister for Arts and Culture, Dr Z Pallo Jordan, will be asked to present a cheque for £5,000 to the overall winner of the Best First Book category and a cheque for £10,000 to the author of the Best Book. But first a few words about the background to the prize and the judging process.
The Commonwealth Writers Prize aims to bring Commonwealth voices to a wider audience and thereby encourage inter cultural learning, respect and understanding. Entries for the Prize are first assessed by four regional judging panels, with financial backing from the Commonwealth Foundation and the Macquarie Bank. The selection of the overall winner is then made by a pan Commonwealth panel which meets in a different Commonwealth country each year.
In 2007 the announcement of the overall winners in each category was made at the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica. The overall winner of the Best Book was Lloyd Jones from New Zealand for his novel Mister Pip, a work inspired by a Dickens novel which shows how books can change lives in surprising ways.
Let me remind you that last year the regional winner for Africa in the Best First Book category was All We Have Left Unsaid by Maxine Case (South Africa), Kwela Books; a moving tale about the ties that bind mothers, daughters and sisters, and the silences that keep them apart. The story is told with disarming simplicity but in its portrayal of domestic anguish much is revealed about some of the dark corners of South African politics in the 1980s.
The regional winner for Africa in the Best Book category was The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson (South Africa) Penguin Books. In this novel the reader is drawn into the complex and corrupting world of the apartheid regime. The administrator at the heart of the story is a kind and conscientious man who is shunted from one outpost to another. His attempts to ameliorate the injustices of the system lead him eventually to a state of crippling depression. The book breaks new ground in showing how apartheid injured even those working for it by the gradual erosion of their humanity.
These two writers from South Africa - Maxine Case and Shaun Johnson - were with us in Jamaica twelve months ago, and it is very pleasing to see them in the audience today. Their presence is a reminder of the links that are forged by a prize of this kind.
In 2008 another crop of fine works has come out of the four regions. I congratulate all the regional winners on their achievements. We are very pleased that six of the eight regional winners have been able to attend the Franschhoek Literary Festival. We have enjoyed their company and I can assure you that the task of judging between them has not been easy, but decisions have to be made.
This prompts me to say a most sincere word of thanks to all those who have participated in the judging process. The four regional chairpersons are Professor Arthur Gakwandi for Africa; Dr Michael Bucknor for Canada and the Caribbean; Professor Makarand Paranjape for Europe and South Asia and Dr Christine Prentice for South East Asia and South Pacific. In the final judging process held in Johannesburg over the last few days to determine the overall winners in each category, the regional chairpersons were joined by myself and Pumla Dineo Gqola as a South African representative. The works in each of the two categories offered a fascinating range of uncommon settings and seductive new voices.
Let me conclude by saying a few words about the regional winners. The Minister will then be invited to make the final announcement of the overall winner in each category.
Best First Book
In the Best First Book category the regional winner for Africa was Imagine This by Sade Adeniran (Nigeria) SW Books. This is the story of a young girl's journey from childhood to adulthood. Lola Ogunwole leaves all that is familiar behind in London and is sent to live in a village in Nigeria. The novel reflects her journey towards wisdom. It contains a sensitive and perceptive account of a voyage through memory, imagination and a re imagined past.
The regional winner for Canada and the Caribbean was The End of the Alphabet by C S Richardson (Canada) Doubleday. This short novel is a magical, deeply romantic story about an everyday life defined by an extraordinary love. Told by his doctor that he has one month to live, Ambrose Zephyr and his wife, Zipper, embark on a whirlwind expedition to the places he has most loved or longed to see, A through Z, Amsterdam to Zanzibar. The course of their journey takes an unplanned turn when Ambrose seeks out the destination most fittingly called home.
The winner in the Europe and South Asia region was A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh) John Murray. This is the first major fictional account in English of the creation of Bangladesh. Housewife, widow, and mother, Rehana Haque, exemplifies the power of the individual to resist and ultimately prevail against the ravages of war. The assured and lyrical prose evokes the tumultuous birthing of a new nation in an intensely personal family narrative.
The winner in the South East Asia and South Pacific region was The Anatomy of Wings (Australia) University of Queensland Press. Karen Foxlee's novel captures perfectly the essence of growing up in a small Australian mining town. In trying to make sense of the sudden death of her teenage sister, Jennifer Day looks to the adult world around her for answers. She sifts through lies and truths, but what she finds are mysteries, miracles and more questions. In this poignant story, we see a girl's failure to cross the threshold into adulthood and the consequent falling apart of her family circle.
Best Book
In the Best Book category the regional winner for Africa was The Hangman's Game by Karen King Aribisala (Nigeria) Peepal Tree Press. Using parallel narrative lines, the author achieves a persuasive fusion of two distinct historical moments in the African diasporic adventure: the slave revolt of 1823 in then British Guyana and the heroic resistance to the military authoritarian rigours inflicted on contemporary Nigeria.
The Best Book for the Canada and the Caribbean region was Lawrence Hill's remarkable novel The Book of Negroes (Canada) HarperCollins Publishers, the title of which is drawn from a historical document. Epic in scope, this is the remarkable odyssey of Aminata Diallo. Sold into slavery, wresting her freedom, she survives to tell her story of courage, endurance and hope. Compellingly narrated, this literary triumph challenges us to re examine the history of slavery.
The regional winner for Europe and South Asia was Animal's People by Indra Sinha (India) Simon and Schuster. This powerful novel is an ingenious work of storytelling that takes us to "That Night" when, thanks to an American chemical company, a modern day apocalypse hits the narrator's slum. It is a book that takes us to the heart of contemporary India.
The regional winner in the best book category for South East Asia and South Pacific was The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll (Australia) HarperCollins. This outstanding novel is both a meditation on the rhythms of suburban life in Australia and a luminous exploration of public and private reckoning during a time of radical change.
We must now look to the Minister to announce the winners.
[Tahmima Anam of Bangladesh won overall Best First Book for A Golden Age. Lawrence Hill of Canada won overall Best Book for The Book of Negroes, published in the USA as Someone Knows My Name. In accepting the major award Lawrence Hill said that his book dramatises the all but forgotten story of 18th century Africans forced into slavery in the Americas, liberated after many years and miraculously returned to the mother continent in the same lifetime. "As a Canadian novelist, with the usual challenges faced by writers in small markets, it is thrilling to receive the Prize and the opportunity it presents. I thank the Commonwealth Foundation and the Macquarie Group Foundation for celebrating literature and literacy so vigorously in 53 countries worldwide."]
