The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University recently announced the inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell Prizes. Zoë Wicomb, a former visiting fellow in the Department of English at the University of Macau (UM), won a literary award in the fiction category. She was awarded USD150,000 for her outstanding achievement.

Zoë Wicomb, author of the groundbreaking Apartheid-era story collection, You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town, said, “For a minor writer like myself, this is a validation I would never have dreamt of. I am overwhelmed — and deeply grateful for this generous prize. It will keep me for several years, and it will speed up the writing too since I can now afford to go away when the first draft proves difficult to produce in my own house.”

Zoë Wicomb, a professor emerita at the University of Strathclyde, UK,  joined UM’s Department of English, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FSH),in September 2012 as a visiting fellow for three months. During her stay at UM, she delivered several lectures on fiction writing and shared her fiction works with UM members. She also completed a nearly final draft of a novel entitled “Home”, as well as an essay on the London of black immigrants in relation to Foucault’s heterotopia and its precursor, Blanchot’s placenessness as outlined in The Space of Literature.

Both Prof Montgomery, head of the Department of English, and Prof Simpson, associate dean of FSH, were delighted at the news. They offered their warmest congratulations to Zoë for gaining such a prestigious award. While it is not the first of Zoë’s awards, her fiction is attracting major international recognition and they are proud to have hosted her stay in Macao.  They also expressed their gratitude for UM’s support in launching the visiting fellow programme which has made it possible to attract talented scholars, researchers and writers like Wicomb to Macao.

The Windham Campbell Prizes is a new global writer’s award created with a gift from the late novelist Donald Windham and his partner Sandy M Campbell. It is now one of the largest literary prizes in the world. This year, 59 writers from around the globe were nominated, including from India, Pakistan, Jamaica, New Zealand, Australia, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom, while nine of them were selected to receive awards in fiction, nonfiction and drama categories.

Should you have any inquiries about the press release, please feel free to contact Ms. Veronica Tang at（853）8397 4323 or prs.media@um.edu.mo or visit UM webpage www.umac.mo.