What does the nomination mean to you?

Christopher Hope: To be nominated for the prize means a great deal to me —' 'My Mother's Lovers' is a very South African book and the Sunday Times award is the most celebrated South African literary prize. So it feels good to be there alongside other memorable new novels from South African writers.

Ivan Vladislavic: I’m very glad the judges thought the book was good enough to be considered for the award. The Sunday Times and the other media seem to have given the awards more attention than ever, which is great for the writers lucky enough to be on the short lists.

Leonie Joubert: I wasn’t nominated for the short list in the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award, but was given an Honorary Award for the innovative way in which I approach my subject in the book 'Scorched: South Africa’s Changing Climate' — climate change.

Popular science is an under-represented genre in South Africa, so to have 'Scorched' singled out in this way may encourage other writers and publishers to dip their toes into this pool.

Personally, though, it is thrilling to receive the acknowledgement. 'Scorched' is my first book, so to have it given a special mention by the judges of this most prestigious award suggests that I might finally have found my place in the world. I’m a bit of a late bloomer…

Lewis Nkosi: Unless you intend God to be your only reader, in which case you can store away what you write in your drawer, every writer, I imagine, writes in order to be read. Otherwise, why try to get your work published? Not only do you wish to be read, you also hope that what you write will be considered of sufficient value to deserve a public mention — which is what it means to be nominated for a prize. Your loved ones always think that you are the greatest writer on earth. Nomination allows you a moment of suspicion — but it’s only for a moment — that they may be right after all!

What was your intention when writing your book?

Christopher Hope: I wrote this book as a kind of dark, and sometimes passionate love-letter to my own country and to my own history. 'My Mother's Lovers' is a saga that spans the 20th century, and the continent — I wanted to try and write something that echoed something of the exuberance, the energy, the comedy and the tragedy of Africa itself.

Ivan Vladislavic: At first, I was trying to understand something about Joburg and the corners of it I know well. I began with a speculative sequence of short texts, and it took me quite some time to realise that I had the makings of a book. Then I had to figure out what kind of book it was and try to write it as well as I could.

Leonie Joubert: 'Scorched' started with a trip to 46 degrees South. I was given an opportunity to shadow a team of climate change scientists on Marion Island in the Southern Ocean. I didn’t have any intention of writing a book when I first boarded the SA Agulhas, but I was intrigued by what I learned from the trip — and thrilled by the process of spinning these stories up into narratives — so when I returned to the mainland I just kept going. Before long I got a sneaky suspicion that there was a book lurking beneath all these fascinating stories about our natural spaces and curious plants and animals.

On a more esoteric level, I suppose I wanted to see if I could do it. My first attempt at a book was a rather lame seven-page sortie into the life of a horse and a girl when I was about nine. But an unfortunate run-in with an English teacher, and a misunderstanding about “its” versus “it’s” saw me scrap that in humiliation. I hadn’t held any ambitions to write a book since then but once I got the whiff of 'Scorched' up my nose, I found the whole process invigorating and un-put-downable. I suppose it’s the same reason why someone might decide to run the Comrades Marathon — it’s a long-haul challenge which is either going to leave you burned out, or a little blistered but with a tremendous sense of well-being and individual growth.

Lewis Nkosi: Writing a novel is like giving birth to a child. There are countless reasons why babies are conceived. In the grip of a passion on a cold rainy night, consolation for loss of something irreplaceable, making a baby in order to perpetuate your name, perhaps as a result of an accident in an encounter with a complete stranger who seems sympathetic.

In my case, the last example comes closest to why I wrote 'Mandela's Ego'. I had wonderful students at Brandeis University, in Boston, in my writing class, very bright, very sympathetic. I wanted to encourage them to write.

As an act of solidarity, I told them I would also write something for them which would read together but I had no idea what. Then I thought very quickly: I thought of a young boy who grows up worshipping Mandela. His manhood comes to an abrupt end before it has begun the day Mandela is arrested and sent to Robben Island.

Once started, books take on their own lives: after only a few pages I soon discovered that 'Mandela's Ego' was a wonderful opportunity to mediate on our recent history. On our ethical values, on the idea of hero-worship, and, above all, a way to rediscover the voices of our rural communities, including the voices of children, which are rarely written about or allowed to speak in our novels.

Which is more important to you — literary awards or popular success? And are the two mutually exclusive?

Christopher Hope: It is good to have the push that literary prize can give a book — so I don't think that popular success and literary always contradict one another. Anything that helps to spread news of a good new novel is fine by me — but in the end it is those readers who loyally go out and buy my books, whether they win prizes or not, whom I really treasure.

Ivan Vladislavic: It’s nice to have the value of your work acknowledged, whether by a panel of judges or a wide readership. There’s no reason why their opinions shouldn’t coincide. But good writing often comes from a feeling of dissatisfaction, I think, and so it doesn’t help to feel too pleased with yourself as a writer.

Leonie Joubert: I think that’s a bit like asking if wildebeest and zebra must run together or not — they both like to do so, but don’t need to. As a first-time author, whose name is unknown to bookstores and the public, anything that gets people asking for the book at the front desk of a shop is important.

Both accolades are nice to receive: if the people you intended to read the book love it then, as an author, you have succeeded. That’s probably the most important success. But to then gain a positive critique from people whose job it is to judge these things, well that also bench-marks your work.

The reason why the Alan Paton Honorary Award has been important to me is that it has put the book into the public space in a way which an individual reader is unable to do because readers don’t have access to media in the same way that a competition of this nature does.

Having said that, word-of-mouth interest, generated by readers who loved the book, has brought tremendous opportunity, including the 2007 Ruth First Fellowship. This will allow me to tell the stories of South African communities that are vulnerable to climate change for different reasons.

Lewis Nkosi: I see no distinction between literary awards and popular success. One feeds into the other. Of course, you hope that a literary award is given not for a whim after an all-night party but is hopefully decided by professionally minded people who consider other criteria beyond an author’s good looks and splendid attire he or she may be famous for. You hope judges will also bring to their judgment a knowledge of literary values that make a book an important cultural artefact it often is.

What will you be doing with the prize money if you win?

Christopher Hope: I've learnt never to look that far ahead — literary prizes are a bit like horse races, with writers for horses, and I never bet on myself.

Ivan Vladislavic: I will paint my garden wall, treat my family to a few things and invest in the writing of another book.

Lewis Nkosi: Casey Motsisi used to say: “Money is the root of all Evil.” Then he would quickly add: “Never mind the Evil, just give me the root.” In my case, I doubt if the prize money would be spent on breeding evil. I hope it will be for good. I am planning my memoirs: travelling in the country, researching and collecting documents relating not only to my own development as a child and an orphan but reflecting on an entire generation that grew up under apartheid of which I am member, this is what my prize money would be spent on.

I have no other sources of income. I live by my pen.

In any case, even if I do not win I would have had a wonderful opportunity to meet other writers, share the joys of those who win a prize and grieve with those who come back empty-handed. It’s not the end of the world, after all!

Do South Africans pay enough attention to local literature? If not, what can be done?

Christopher Hope: I don't think South Africans pay enough attention to reading. And anything that changes this culture of disinterest is a good idea. Things like the Sunday Times Awards. And the Cape Town Book Fair. Or a good literary festival, like the one I had a hand in starting in Franschhoek this year. These help to change the culture of disinterest, they make writers, reading and books more visible, more interesting, more natural.

Ivan Vladislavic: A love of books and reading is something you develop as a child. All the dedicated readers — and writers — I know were encouraged by their parents or a teacher, and had access to books at home or in libraries. In the long run, we need schools with good teachers and decent libraries, and homes where there’s enough money and interest to buy books.

Leonie Joubert: This is a sensitive issue. If I read the book review pages in magazines and newspapers, certain publications give local literature ample space. But many bookstores give prominence to international titles, big-name authors, and the more populist genres, by giving them prominence at the front of the store.

The book selling industry is a competitive one and if international publishing houses have more sway in how their titles are treated in our stores, then it might not favour local writers enough.

When radio stations in SA were required to play a quota of local music, it began to expose often US- or UK-centric local audiences to the breadth of South African musos’ talent. I wonder if something similar shouldn’t be done for local literature? I had this conversation with Victor Dlamini, of SAfm, who disagrees with me — he reckons that once the popularity of a genre or title is big enough, it will secure its own space in the market. Which is probably true, but not every book is going to be (or even should be) a 'Spud'.

However because bookstores are such an important link in the supply chain, I do think they need to give local literature — including the less populist genres — a fair chance. I know that poets really struggle to have their work given fair space in the bookstores.

Writers can’t always rely on reviews to drive people to buy their books — we need the passing trade and impulse buys which will only come if the book is given a good display in the store. Having conversed with other local authors, I know this feeling is not unique to me.