Bronwyn Law-Viljoen’s debut novel, The Printmaker, will be awarded the Olive Schreiner Prize for Prose on 7 September.

Administered by the English Academy of South Africa, the award honours new and emergent South African writing talent.

Added to the accolades bestowed on The Printmaker is a French translation by Elisabeth Gilles, which will be published by Swiss publisher Éditions Zoé in October. The novel was also shortlisted for the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize.

In The Printmaker, Law-Viljoen, who teaches Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand, tells the story of a reclusive artist who leaves behind thousands of etchings and drawings when he passes away. A single, sealed box addressed to a man in Zimbabwe is among his belongings. The curator of the artist’s work is compelled to go in search of this man in order to make sense of the printmaker’s enigmatic life.

Law-Viljoen is the head of Creative Writing at Wits University and the editor and co-founder of Fourthwall Books. She received her doctorate from New York University, where she taught writing and literature. She has edited books on art, design and architecture, and published essays on South African art and photography. Her short stories have appeared in New Contrast and Aerodrome. She lives in Johannesburg.

Categories Fiction International South Africa

Tags Awards Bronwyn Law-Viljoen Éditions Zoé Elisabeth Gilles English Academy of South Africa News Olive Schreiner Prize Penguin Random House SA The Printmaker Umuzi