| Mandla Langa |
| Lifetime Achievement Literary Award |
| Mandla Langa, born in Durban, 1950, studied for a BA at the University of Fort Hare but left following widespread student protests in 1972. He taught High School in KwaMashu in 1973/74 before going into exile in 1976. He has lived in Lesotho, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Hungary and the UK. In 1980 he won the pan-African Drum Magazine story contest and in 1991 he was awarded the Arts Council of Great Britain Bursary. He was Deputy Chief Representative and Cultural Representative of the ANC in the UK and Vice-Chair of the africa95 Exhibition in London; was a weekly columnist of the Sunday Independent. He holds certificates in Offset Litho Printing and Periodical Journalism with the University of London. Five of his works have been published, Tenderness of Blood (Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1987), A Rainbow on a Paper Sky (Kliptown Books, London, 1989), The Naked Song and Other Stories (David Philip Publishers, Cape Town, 1997); The Memory of Stones (DPP, 2000) and The Lost Colours of the Chameleon (Picador Africa, 2008), which won him the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Africa Region in March 2009. Lost Colours was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Awards in 2009 and was on the long list of the Impac Dublin Award for 2010. In 2007 he received the country’s National Orders of Ikhamanga (Silver) for his literary, journalistic and cultural achievements. In 1990 his musical Milestones was staged at the State Theatre. In 1996/97 he was the Convener of the Task Group on Government Communications; editor-at-large of Leadership Magazine, Programme Director for Television at the SABC, and from 1999-2005 he chaired the Independent Communications Authority of SA, ICASA. He chairs the board of MultiChoice Africa and co-chairs the board of Koketso Holdings. He sits on the boards of Ericsson South Africa, Business and Arts South Africa and a miscellany of institutions involved with the arts. On 10 September 2009, Mandla became a recipient of a Living Legends Award from the eThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu Natal. Mandla Langa is married to June Josephs and they have two daughters. |
