The Top 20 South African Books, 1994-2014: A New List From the Library and Information Association of South Africa

The Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) released The Top 20 South African Books, 1994-2014 list earlier this week.
Thanks to LIASA for sharing and our best wishes for a wonderful South African Library Week (it begins tomorrow).
From the Introduction to the List:

The Library and Information Association of South African (LIASA) has adopted the theme “Celebrating libraries in 20 years of democracy” for its activities in 2014, which includes The Librarians Choice: Top 20 South African books, 1994 – 2014.
In celebrating this theme, librarians across South Africa were invited to identify the Top 20 books published during these 20 years that

• were written by a South African author in one of our official languages
• were published for the first time between 1994 and 2014
• reflect South African life by South Africans
• focus on issues of democracy or contribute to the consolidation of our democracy
• examine who we are and where we are heading as a nation.

The nominations were open to all genres of literature from fiction to non-fiction, adult and children’s books.
The invitation to identity the Librarian’s Choice went out late last year and by mid-January 253 books were nominated by librarians across South Africa.

The first three titles on the list (in chronological order) are:

• Long walk to freedom by Nelson Mandela, published by Macdonald Purnell, 1994

• Country of my Skull  by Antje Krog,  published by Random House, 1998

• I have life: Alison’s story by Marianne Thamm, published by Penguin, 1998

Review All 20 Titles Here

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