Marlene van Niekerk, Michiel Heyns, Imraan Coovadia, Ivan Vladislavic and Denis Hirson all had their work recognised at the prestigious awards ceremony during the Cape Town Book Fair last night.

Marlene van Niekerk, and translator Michiel Heyns, won the SA Sunday Times Fiction Prize 2007 for AGAAT (published in Afrikaans by Tafelberg and in English by Jonathan Ball in SA and Little Brown in the UK in November 2007, under the title THE WAY OF THE WOMEN), and Imraan Coovadia was the runner-up with GREEN-EYED THIEVES (published by Umuzi in SA).

Meanwhile, Ivan Vladislavic was the winner of the Alan Paton Prize for Non-Fiction with PORTRAIT WITH KEYS (published by Umuzi in SA and Portobello in the UK), and became the only author to have won both the Sunday Times Prize for Fiction and the Alan Paton Prize for Non-Fiction. He won the Sunday Times Prize for Fiction in 2002 for THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET.

Denis Hirson was named runner-up for the Alan Paton Prize, for WHITE SCARS, which is published by Jacana.

Marlene van Niekerk and Michiel Heyns also received an Honourable Mention for their collaboration on "a novel with paintings" MEMORANDUM (published by Human and Rousseau in SA), which is illustrated with the paintings of Adriaan van Zyl.