Bongani Kona: Although the focus of today's conversation is The Island Prize which you founded in 2021 to spotlight the work of debut novelists from Africa, I would like to start by asking you about the publication of your first novel, Finding Soutbek. Could you recount that journey for us? What were some of the structural barriers you encountered as a young writer from South Africa?

Karen Jennings: I finished writing that novel in 2009 and I didn’t find a publisher for it until 2012. It did the rounds of all the publishers in South Africa, and nobody was interested in publishing it. I began looking further afield. The “big” publishers in the UK, America, Canada and Australia all required one to have an agent. I didn’t know anything about agents or how to go about finding one. Instead, I began looking for publishers that did not require authors to be represented by an agent. I made a list in an old exercise book, noting the name of the publisher, the date I sent my query letter and manuscript, or portion thereof. The final column was for responses. I recently found that notebook again. I sent out queries to 29 publishers. Of those 29, only nine replied. Eight said no thank you. One said yes. That one was Holland Park Press, a small, independent publisher in the UK run by Bernadette Jansen op de Haar and her brother Arnold. They were very kind to take a chance on me, and other authors whom they published. Sadly, they closed last year. The publishing industry is not an easy nor a kind one. Selling books only gets harder and harder. But I stayed with them for my several more books, before moving on to another small publisher in the UK, with a very similar name – Holland House Books. Even now, having had novels longlisted for the Booker and for the Women’s Prize, the bigger publishers are unwilling to take the risk of publishing me. As I said, the publishing industry is suffering.

BK: The last time we spoke in a setting like this was after your novel, An Island, about a lone lighthouse keeper confronted by a refugee who washes ashore, had been longlisted for the Booker Prize. You seemed troubled, if I may say so, by the all the attention you received and what this suggested about who or what determines which voices from Africa are worth celebrating. One of the things you said then was, ‘We don’t need to wait for people from other countries to tell us which African author is worth reading. No one would wait for a Zimbabwean writer to decide who is the best Irish writer.” Could you recount that experience for us again?

KJ: In some ways that seems a lifetime ago, and yet, in others, very little has changed. In the interim, a number of important publishing houses throughout Africa have closed. This means there are even fewer opportunities for writers to be published at home and to be recognised there. We are being forced to turn overseas, to have people who know nothing about us, our cultures and people and lives, decide whether we are worth publishing. Yet, should one of us be fortunate enough to be published and to have the quality of our work be recognised, then we garner some respect at home. Then we are seen as having “made it” – because we have been accepted by the “big, important” people of the Global North. Don’t get me wrong – recognition of writers is important. We write in order to be read. We want to be read widely, to share and teach and learn. But I hate this sense of only being considered worthwhile if we’ve been recognised beyond our country’s borders. When an Afro-focused online journal like Brittle Paper curates the 100 most notable books by Africans in a certain year, they are celebrating the talents of Africa – we need much more of that! Less of the often-condescending lists published by journals and newspapers in the Global North of “Top Ten African Novels”, as though they are the best of a bad lot.

Oh, I am sorry for all this cynicism. I become despondent and angry sometimes. I have just read a remarkable, truly remarkable manuscript by a South African author. Someone who has not been able to be published anywhere.

BK: This would be a natural point in the conversation to introduce The Island Prize, but considering your significant past involvement in mentorship programmes that nurture and support young literary voices on the continent such as Writivism and Short Story Day Africa, what have you learned from those experiences about the specific challenges faced by young writers?

KJ: I am constantly learning about challenges faced by young or not-so-young aspiring writers. For instance, I come from privilege. I grew up in a home with food and electricity and running water. I went to a school where I received a good education. I have had no difficulty in learning to read. I have had access to computers and the internet. Just the other day a student of mine confessed that he had never used a computer before. He is 18 years old, in his first year of university. He said he wrote his short story by hand, which was a challenge because he had never written a story before, and English is not his first language. Then he had to teach himself how to type the story on the computer. He said the whole experience made him feel stupid and like he wanted to give up. I told him that there was nothing stupid about learning – he had taught himself to use a computer! He had struggled through drafts of a story, trying to find words and expressions in a language that didn’t come easily to him! There’s nothing stupid about that.

BK. Please tell us about The Island Prize. Entrants are required to submit the first three chapters or 10 000 words of their debut novel. How did the Prize begin and how many submissions did you receive in the first year? Do you read all the submissions yourself? I know these are a lot of questions but in short, could you explain the origins of the prize to us and discuss its administration?

KJ: The prize began after An Island was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. I had become good friends with my publisher, Robert Peett of Holland House Books. I mentioned to him that one day I would like to have my own publishing house where I work closely with only one or two authors a year. He suggested that we come up with a competition which does something similar. The idea behind The Prize is really about mentorship. About working closely with an author and helping them improve their manuscript, and then hopefully helping them find an agent or a publisher – or at least helping them through the process – which can be devastating on one’s own. The prize money is very small. Of course money is nice, but, as I said, the real focus is the mentorship.

Yes, I do read every single entry. Every single one. We usually get between 120 and 150, more or less. It is important to me that I can see what is being written – what subjects and styles. I also want to be sure to spot all the diamonds in the rough – those who have real talent and something special, despite not having the best use of English, for example.

I admit, it can seem overwhelming at times. But then I see what amazing things are being written, and I feel so uplifted. But then I see the state of publishing and the difficulty of getting writers published. I begin to feel hopeless. That’s how it goes – up and down, up and down. Still, it is very important to me that we continue. Just this week Reem Gaafar’s Mouth Full of Salt, which won The Island Prize in 2023 and was picked up by Saqi Books, was the top selling fiction book by an independent publisher in the UK. Amazing to think of all those people reading a novel about Sudan!

BK: May I ask you about the criteria? Why is the prize for a debut novel, rather than a second or third book? And related to that, why specifically a debut novel and not, for example, a collection of essays or short stories?

KJ: Any time that one has to deal with the administrative side of things, the less amorphous the better. We wanted to have clear criteria that made sense to us. For both of us, our fortes are more closely aligned with fiction writing in the form of a novel. We had considered being open to memoirs, short story collections, etc, but it would become far too complicated and unwieldy. Then, also, realistically, even “famous” authors struggle to get short story collections published. Publishers just don’t touch them, and readers don’t buy them. If trying to get authors’ novels is challenging, trying to get short story collections published would have been impossible. One has to pick one’s battles, unfortunately.

Then, the reason for debut novels is twofold: (1) If an author has been previously published, there can be all kinds of contractual agreements and obligations related to future works. We’re not agents or lawyers. We didn’t feel confident that dealing with such issues would be the best use of our time. (2) We want to help writers who have not yet been published, so that we can help to navigate them through the process. Many writers don’t properly understand the complicated and ponderous labyrinthine nature of the publishing industry. Previously published writers will have experienced at least some of that.

BK: In the last week alone, you’ve sent me a poem by Chioniso Tsikisayi, who was longlisted for The Island Prize in 2024, and a launch invite to Andile Cele’s novel, Braids and Migraines, runner up for the prize in 2023. I mention this to say that you’re continually promoting the work of young writers, and I wanted to ask: what have been some of your own highlights from these few years since the prize was established?

KJ: I try to promote them as best I can, though my social media presence is not what it should be. One day I would like to have a marketing team do it all for me – people who know and understand social media better than I do!

Gosh, there have been a number of highlights. I mentioned Reem’s success above. I am also absolutely thrilled about Andile’s novel. It is so amazing, and she has worked so hard on it for a long time. It is a novel that deserves to be read, and I believe it will mean a lot to many readers. I wish I could give away copies to everyone I see! I am also so thrilled by the success that Algerian author Hamza Koudri (runner-up in 2022) has seen with his novel Sand Roses. He has been invited to speak at a number of events. I even had the wonderful pleasure of meeting him at the Open Book festival in Cape Town last year!

There are quieter moments, too, like reading a beautiful line in a manuscript, or sending a word of praise to a writer who has not made the longlist but who must be encouraged to keep writing!

BK: What are your hopes for this prize?

KJ: While it hasn’t all been plain sailing, we can certainly say that we have shown the value of the prize – unpublished writers from all over the continent have sent submissions, and we have helped a number of them to get published, while many more have had help in developing their writing skills and their knowledge of publishing. Now we want to develop and publicise the prize more; it is entirely not for profit, and we provide all administrative service, personally and through paid interns, and prize monies. We are hoping to find sponsorship and funding so that we can make the prize a permanent and meaningful feature of the African literary world and, indeed, the global literary world. It would be wonderful if we could find private companies who operate on the continent to show their support to promoting and supporting African writing, and for non-commercial organisations to help a project of proven value. The prize needs to continue. With our limited resources, we’ve already seen what it can mean for writers. How wonderful if we could do even more!

BK: Lastly, may I ask you to talk a bit about Words on the Page, A Workbook for African Writers? This resource is specifically designed for African writers and is available for free download.

KJ: The idea for the workbook came to me because what I would like, ideally, is for writing advice and support and encouragement to be available for everyone, throughout the continent. I had been reading a lot about the difficulty that aspiring African writers face in getting a second glance. On top of that, there is this increasing belief that you can only be a writer if you have done an MA or PhD in Creative Writing, preferably overseas. But writing is for everyone – you don’t have to have a degree. You don’t even have to have finished school. Everyone has the right to tell stories, and everyone should have access to ways of learning to improve and hone their storytelling skills – whether at university or whether in a small village far from the capital.

I have dreams of creating workgroups, where mentorship and classes will serve as a means of training the individual members to run such groups on their own, and so on, creating networks throughout the continent where writers are supporting and encouraging one another. I don’t currently have the resources to do that, but I thought the workbook would be a good start – a source where writers could read African writers and talk about issues that are relevant to writing in Africa. Writers can choose whether to go through the workbook on their own, or whether to form workgroups of their own where they discuss and share.

Really, the workbook is a first step. One I am glad to have made with my very best friend, Robert Peett of Holland House Books.