The ASSAf Humanities Book Award honours exceptional scholarly contributions that deepen our understanding of the human condition and advance intellectual inquiry in South Africa. Presented annually, the award recognises a distinguished work of non-fiction in the Humanities, published within three years of its nomination, that demonstrates scholarly rigour, originality, and eloquence.
This award underscores ASSAf’s commitment to promoting the Humanities as a vital domain of knowledge production and a cornerstone of a reflective, informed, and democratic society. By celebrating outstanding texts, ASSAf affirms the enduring value of humanist scholarship in shaping national discourse and global understanding.
Awards may be made in the following categories:
- Established researcher (Winner)
- Emerging researcher (Emerging Scholar)
Mmaphuthi Rametse
Senior Project Officer: Scholarly Publishing Programme, ASSAf
Email: mmaphuthi@assaf.org.za
Humanities Book Award Winners
| Year | Author | Book Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Prof Hugo ka Canham Winner | Riotous Deathscapes |
| 2025 | Prof Siphokazi Magadla Winner | Guerrillas and Combative Mothers: Women and the Armed Struggle in South Africa |
| 2023 | Prof Lesley Green Winner | Rock|Water|Life: Ecology and Humanities for a Decolonial South Africa |
| 2023 | Dr B Camminga Emerging Scholar | Transgender refugees and the imagined South Africa: Bodies over borders and borders over bodies |
| 2023 | Dr Dariusz Dziewanski Emerging Scholar | Gang Entry and Exit in Cape Town: Getting beyond the streets in Africa’s deadliest city |
| 2020 | Prof Charles van Onselen Winner | The Night Trains: Moving Mozambican Miners to and from South Africa, circa 1902-1955 |
| 2017 | Prof Keith Breckenridge Winner | Biometric State: The Global Politics of Identification and Surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the Present |