Penguin Prize for African Writing - the winners

Congratulations to writer and scholar, Pius Adesanmi, who was unveiled as the winner of the inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing in the Non-fiction category on Saturday September 4 in South Africa. Adesanmi won for his manuscript for a book of essays, 'You're Not A Country, Africa!'

Here's what the organisers said about Adesanmi's manuscript, which will now be published by Penguin South Africa:

"In this groundbreaking collection of essays Pius Adesanmi tries to unravel what it is that Africa means to him as an African, and by extension to all those who inhabit this continent of extremes. This is a question that exercised some of the continent’s finest minds in the twentieth century, but which pan-Africanism, Negritude, nationalism, decolonisation and all the other projects through which Africans sought to restore their humanity ultimately failed to answer. Crisscrossing the continent, Adesanmi engages with the enigma that is Africa in an attempt to make meaning of this question for all twenty-first century Africans."

Winning in the Fiction category is Zambian Ellen Banda-Aaku (left), who's also part of the Ghanaian writing community because she lived there for a while, although Penguin citation now informs that she lives in England. She won for her novel manuscript, 'Patchwork'. She was the 2007 Africa Regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story competition.

The winners were announced at the Mail & Guardian Litfest in South Africa. See more photos from the award ceremony here.

• Photos: Penguin Books SA