South African Literary Awards – South African Literary Awards Website

Submissions Opening date: 12th February 2026 | Closing Date: 29th May 2026

The wRite associates, in partnership with the national Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC), invite South African writers to submit qualifying works for the 21st South African Literary Awards edition.

Nomination Categories

Past Recipients

Announcement of nominees : 21st October 2026 | Announcement of winners : 7th November 2026

Submission’s Guidelines

Submissions must follow the criteria as set out herein. Please ensure that you have read, understood and adhered to ALL the rules.

The work must demonstrate good linguistic presentation, the nation’s identity, societal values, universal truths, and cultural aesthetics. It must also contribute to social cohesion, nation building and transcendence of time.
All SALA categories accept work in all South African official languages
The work must be the author’s original work unless in Literary Translators Award where it can be another’s author’s work translated by another author into another language.
Each entry must be written in one official language. SALA doesn’t accept multiple language entries; except under Literary Translators Award, whereby the entered work will be in the benefiting language while the original in another language.
Ten (10) copies of each entry must be submitted. Each copy must be accompanied by a nomination form.
An entry can only be made for one category. Should an entry be submitted for more than one category it will be disqualified.
Work that previously won a SALA award should not be re-entered for another category.
Work which was previously unsuccessful cannot be re-entered in future.
Set books are not accepted
SALA does not accept entries by email or fax
Nominations must be endorsed by the Author or Publisher.
Authors’ and Nominator’s full details must all be included in the Nomination Form.
Late submissions will not be accepted.
Should the submitting party not receive a response within 10 working days of submission to SALA, s/he/they must know her/his/their submission/s was/were unsuccessful.
The judges’ decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into.
All submitted entries, whether successful or not, will not be returned to the submitting party.

Submission Information

Please note that this year submissions forms are submitted online. However, the hard copies of the books must be submitted by courier or self-delivery to: