South Africa based author Sue Nyathi, walked away with the Novel Award at the recently held 18th edition of the SA Literary Awards. Nyathi received the award for her most recent novel “An Angel’s Demise”. This comes as the second honour for the novel, after it won the author the Fiction Award at the Humanities & Social Sciences Awards in March this year.
In the Novel Award category, Nyathi was nominated alongside Sipho Kekezwa, Kobate John Sekele, Thivhusiwi Tshindane Tshivhula and Fred Khumalo.
In a post on X sharing the news of her latest award, Nyathi expressed gratitude to the organisers and sponsors of the event.
So I bagged my second literary award for #AnAngelsDemise @PanMacmillanSA at the #salaawards2023. Thank you The wRite Associates, the founders & creators of the South African Literary Awards for creating this platform & to the sponsors – SA Department of Sports, Arts & Culture and North West University
An Angel’s Demise is an epic saga that explores a contested legacy and the heartrending destiny of a family. The year is 1977 and the story begins on a farm in Somabhula with the birth of Angel.
The farm is run by Paul Williams, an outwardly harsh and bigoted man who holds the livelihoods of many in his hands. When Angel’s parents join the liberation struggle, she is left in the care of her grandmothers, who have been in service to the Williams family for generations.
Nyathi has so far published four novels and edited a fifth. She first entered the literary world with The Polygamist in 2012, then 6 years later in 2018 came The Gold Diggers, followed by A Family Affair in 2020 and then An Angel’s Demise in 2022. In 2021 she was the editor of the anthology When Secrets Become Stories: Women Speak Out, which shared different stories from survivors of domestic violence.
