Jonny Steinberg | |
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 Steinberg in 2015 | |
| Born | 22 March 1970 South Africa |
| Education | Wits University |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Notable works | Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (2023) |
| Notable awards | National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography Windham–Campbell Literature Prize; Sunday Times Alan Paton Award; Media24 Books Literary Prize: Recht Malan Prize for Nonfiction |
Jonny Steinberg (born 22 March 1970) is a South African writer and scholar.
Steinberg was born and raised in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. He was educated at Wits University in Johannesburg, and at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a doctorate in political theory. He taught for nine years at Oxford, where he was Professor of African Studies. He currently teaches at Yale University's Council on African Studies. [1]
Steinberg's first two books – Midlands (2002), about the murder of a white South African farmer, and The Number (2004), a biography of a prison gangster – won South Africa's premier non-fiction award, the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. In 2013, Steinberg was an inaugural winner of the Windham–Campbell Literature Prizes. [2]
His books also include Three-Letter Plague (published as Sizwe's Test in the United States), which chronicles a young man's journey through South Africa's AIDS pandemic. It was a Washington Post Book of the Year [3] and was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize. [4] Steinberg is also the author of Thin Blue (2008), an exploration of the unwritten rules of engagement between South African civilians and police, [5] and Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York (2011), about the Liberian civil war and its aftermath in an exile community in New York. Writing in The Guardian, Margaret Busby described it as an "extraordinary, stylistically varied mix of reportage, history and biography". [6]
Steinberg's 2015 book, A Man of Good Hope, was described by Observer reviewer Ian Birrell as "an epic African saga that chronicles some fundamental modern issues such as crime, human trafficking, migration, poverty and xenophobia, while giving glimpses into the Somali clan system, repression in Ethiopia and lethal racism in townships". [7] The book was adapted into a stage production by the Isango Ensemble and premiered at the Young Vic in London in 2016. [8]
Steinberg's dual biography of Winnie Madikizela and Nelson Mandela, Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage, was published in May 2023. Damon Galgut described it as "a devastating study of modern South Africa", while Hlonipha Mokoena named it "a masterful book that rattles your bones". [9] [10] Richard Stengel, ghostwriter of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, called it "a beautiful and immensely sad book. [...] [Steinberg] gently but firmly removes the masks [Winnie and Nelson] each carefully constructed, only to find other masks underneath." [11] J. M. Coetzee described the book "as deeply sympathetic to Winnie, caught up in the whirlwind of insurrectionary violence, as to Nelson, trapped in his prison cell and losing touch day by day with the evolving situation on the ground". [12] It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography [13] and was shortlisted for the LA Times Book Prize for biography [14] as well as for the Wolfson History Prize. [15] This dual biography was also a Washington Post , New Yorker , Guardian , Times of London , Times Literary Supplement , Spectator and Waterstones Book of the Year. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Breyten Breytenbach was a South African writer, poet, and painter. He became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of the National Party–led South African Government. He was also known as a founding member of the Sestigers, a dissident literary movement, and was one of the most important poets in Afrikaans literature.
Anthony James Leon is a South African politician who served as leader of the opposition from 1999-2007 as leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA). He led the DA from its inception in 2000, until his retirement from leadership in 2007. Before that, he led the Democratic Party from 1994. He is the longest-serving leader of the official opposition in parliament since the advent of democracy in 1994. Although still a member of the DA, he served as the South African Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay under the African National Congress government from 2009 to 2012.
Dame Rose Tremain is an English novelist, short story writer, and former Chancellor of the University of East Anglia.
Anthony Terrell Seward Sampson was a British writer and journalist. His most notable and successful book was Anatomy of Britain, which was published in 1962 and was followed by five more "Anatomies", updating the original book under various titles. He was the grandson of the linguist John Sampson, of whom he wrote a biography, The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest For A Family Secret (1997). He also gave Nelson Mandela advice on Mandela's famous 1964 defence speech at the trial which led to his conviction for life.
Charles van Onselen is a researcher and historian based at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
The Restless Supermarket is a novel by Croatian-South African author Ivan Vladislavic. It tracks the changes in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, during the 1990s, through the eyes of a grumpy, retired proof-reader who spends his life in one café. It was published by David Philip Publishers in Cape Town in 2001 and was recently reissued. The book was published again in 2014 by publishing house 'And Other Stories.'
The Sunday Times CNA Literary Awards are awarded annually to South African writers by the South African weekly newspaper the Sunday Times. They comprise the Sunday Times CNA Literary Award for Non-fiction and the Sunday Times CNA Literary Award for Fiction, and are awarded for full-length non-fiction works and novels, respectively. Both winners receive R100 000. Ivan Vladislavic is the only person to have won both the fiction and the non-fiction award.
Mark Gevisser is a South African author and journalist. His latest book is The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers (2020). Previous books include A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream and Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir. His journalism has appeared in many publications, including The Guardian, The New York Times, Granta, and the New York Review of Books.
Lauren Beukes is a South African novelist, short story writer, journalist and television scriptwriter.
The Media24 Books Literary Awards are a group of five South African literary prizes awarded annually by Media24, the print-media arm of the South African media company Naspers. They are open to authors whose books are published within the Media24 Books stable, which includes NB Publishers, Jonathan Ball Publishers, LuxVerbi-BM, NVA, and Van Schaik Publishers. Each award is worth R35 000. The awards comprise:
Kopano Matlwa is a South African writer and doctor, known for her novel Spilt Milk, which focuses on the South Africa's "Born Free" generation, and Coconut, her debut novel, which addresses issues of race, class, and colonization in modern Johannesburg. Coconut was awarded the European Union Literary Award in 2006/2007 and also won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2010. Spilt Milk was on the longlist for the 2011 Sunday Times Fiction Prize. She is currently the Executive Director of the Zero Stunting Campaign which is a South African multi-funder initiative that aims to reduce the prevalence of stunting in South Africa by 2020.
Zindziswa "Zindzi" Mandela, also known as Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane, was a South African diplomat and poet, and the daughter of anti-apartheid activists and politicians Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Zindzi was the youngest and third of Nelson Mandela's three daughters, including sister Zenani Mandela.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a Nigerian writer. Her 2017 debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and the Prix Les Afriques. She was awarded The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in 2017.
Yewande Omotoso is a South African-based novelist, architect and designer, who was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria. She currently lives in Johannesburg. Her two published novels have earned her considerable attention, including winning the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, being shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature, and being longlisted for the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction. She is the daughter of Nigerian writer Kole Omotoso, and the sister of filmmaker Akin Omotoso.
The Number: One Man's Search for Identity in the Cape Underworld and Prison Gangs is a non-fiction book written by Jonny Steinberg about South Africa's criminal tradition of prison gangs and published in 2004 by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Jonathan Ancer is a South African journalist, author, podcaster and media trainer. He wrote Uncovering Craig Williamson, which was on the longlist for the Alan Paton literary prize. Ancer wrote Betrayal: The Secret Lives of Apartheid Spies which was released in 2019.
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen is a South African writer, editor, publisher and professor. She is the co-founder of the publisher Fourthwall Books and owns a bookstore called Edition. She acts as the primary editor for works on law and history of South Africa and the architecture and building process of its constitutional court structures, along with artistic book publications of the work of William Kentridge. She has also published her own novel called The Printmaker.
Pumla Dineo Gqola is a South African academic, writer, and gender activist, best known for her 2015 book Rape: A South African Nightmare, which won the 2016 Alan Paton Award. She is a professor of literature at Nelson Mandela University, where she holds the South African Research Chair in African Feminist Imaginations.
Fred Khumalo is a South African journalist and author. His books encompass various genres, including novels, non-fiction, memoir and short stories. Among awards he has received are the European Union Literary Award, the Alan Paton Award and the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award. His writing has appeared in various publications, including the Sunday Times, Toronto Star, New African, The Sowetan and Isolezwe. In 2008, he hosted Encounters, a public-debate television programme, on SABC 2.
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