Wits University Press has 5 finalists for the  Humanities and Social Sciences Book Awards 2017

The National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) Award winners will be announced in Johannesburg on Wednesday 29 March 2017. The awards are aimed at recognising and awarding outstanding, innovative and socially responsible scholarship that enhance and advance the fields of Human Social Sciences. They are awarded for the best non-fiction monograph; the best edited non-fiction volume; the best fiction book; the best creative collections, and digital contributions category.

Wits University Press is proud of having  5 finalists in the shortlists for these awards, with two books shortlisted for the best Non-fiction monograph, namely Gabeba Baderoon’s Regarding Muslims: From slavery to post-apartheid, as well as Susan Booysen’s Dominance & Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma.  In the category for best Non-fiction Edited Volume, Wits Press’s urban studies book, Changing Space, Changing City: Johannesburg after Apartheid, edited by Phil Harrison, Graeme Gotz, Alison Todes and Chris Wray is a finalist.  And in the category for best Creative Collections in the Visual Arts, Wits Press boasts two finalists. They are Beadwork, Art and the Body – Dilo tse Dintsha/Abundance, edited by Anitra Nettleton, and a book on the work of the artist Penny Siopis, Penny Siopis: Time and Again, edited by Gerrit Olivier.

NIHSS CEO, Prof Sarah Mosoetsa said much work needs to be done to identify, support and promote new South African voices, authors and stories in the humanities and social sciences.

Wits University Press publisher, Veronica Klipp said she is pleased that South African scholarly publishing is receiving recognition through these awards. Apart from contributing to research and scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, it also stimulates public debate on a number of important issues and creates new forms of democratic spaces.