Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu wins Best International Fiction at Sharjah Awards 2025
We are thrilled to announce that the acclaimed author has won the prestigious international award for her novel, The Creation of Half-Broken People.
We are incredibly proud to congratulate our author, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, for winning the Best International Fiction Book prize for her fourth novel, The Creation of Half-Broken People.
Siphiwe collected her prestigious award in person at the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair, held in the UAE's cultural hub. This is a significant international achievement that underscores the novel's global resonance and literary power.
This win adds to the book's critical acclaim, as The Creation of Half-Broken People is also currently shortlisted for the 2025 Sunday Times Fiction Prize.
The Creation of Half-Broken People tells the tale of a nameless woman plagued by visions. The novel explores how the continent's past continues to haunt its present and examines the collusion of colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism in creating and normalising a certain kind of womanhood.
This win continues an incredible literary journey for Ndlovu, whose previous novel The History of Man won the Windham Campbell Prize and whose debut, The Theory of Flight, won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize.
Join us in sending a massive congratulations to Siphiwe!
Discover more about the award-winning novel
Explore the novel that is captivating readers and judges around the world.
The Creation of Half-Broken People
by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
Showcasing African Gothic at its finest, this hypnotic novel tangles together classic texts of madness and female rebellion alongside elements of the jingoistic novels of Victorian adventurer H. Rider Haggard. The result is an extraordinary reinvention of colonial and patriarchal perspectives.
The unnamed narrator spins a web back through a century of colonial possession – political, spiritual and mental – to imagine the stories of conquest and captivity, control and disruption, from the perspective of the women and men ‘half-broken’ by the stigmas attached to race and mental illness. Equally ‘half-broken’ are those dehumanised by their insane greed for dominion and treasure.
With trademark compassion and complexity, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu balances the humanity of her characters against the cruelty of empire, making for a spellbinding and literally haunting account of love and magic.
