Maxine Case, author of 'All We Have Left Unsaid', has been chosen as the winner in the Best First Book–Africa region of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

Case, the marketing and promotions co-ordinator at NB Publishers, described the win as, “thrilling and unexpected”. She and fellow Kwela author Kgebetli Moele ('Room 207') as well as other South African writers, Louis Greenberg ('The Beggar’s Sign Writer', Umuzi), Gerald Kraak ('Ice in the Lungs', Jacana) and David Medalie ('The Shadow follows', Picador Africa) and Nigerian author, Segun Alofabi ('A life elsewhere', Jonathan Cape) were all in the running for the prize.

Case will now go on to compete against the Best First Book winners in the other six Commonwealth regions: Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, South Asia, South-East Asia and the South Pacific. The overall winner is to be announced at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica on 27 May, 2007.

Prize money for Best First Book is £5000.

This is the first time that Kwela Books has made it onto the short-list for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the first time in five years that a novel published by a South African publisher has been chosen as winner in either of the two prize categories. Manu Herbstein was the last South African to win the Best First Book Africa region prize for his novel, 'Ama', published by E-books in 2002.

Shaun Johnson has won the Best Book prize for the Africa region for his novel, 'The Native Commissioner', published by Penguin South Africa.

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize is now in its 21st year. Established in 1987, is sponsored and administered by the Commonwealth Foundation with the support of the Macquarie Foundation. Guyanese writer Mark McWatt won Best First Book for 'Suspended Sentences: Fictions of Atonement' in 2006.