South African writer and performer Vuyokazi Ngemntu is the recipient of the prestigious 2025 Chris van Wyk Bursary awarded by Pan Macmillan South Africa!

Ngemntu is currently pursuing a Master’s in Creative Writing at Wits University and this bursary will allow her to continue her education and develop an experimental short story collection exploring the intersection of indigenous knowledge systems, science fiction, and fantasy. Quoted in Pan Macmillan’s announcement, she shares, “This bursary has capacitated the attainment of a life-long dream, which I’ve had to fight against insurmountable odds to defend” and that it indicates a welcome “move towards embracing alternative means and routes to knowledge production.”

This bursary is awarded in recognition of Ngemntu’s “versatility and unique voice,” demonstrated by her early education in performance studies at the University of Cape Town and extensive work in theatre, poetry, and short story writing. Among her accolades is winning Ibua Journal’s 2022 ‘Bold: Food’ regional with her short story “Binnegoed” and being shortlisted for the Share Africa Climate Change Fiction Award for her story “The Serpent’s Handmaiden.” Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kalahari Review, Herri, Ibua Journal, Ake Review, The Culture Review, Short.Sharp.Stories, and Aerodrome.

The awarders of the bursary were impressed by Ngemntu’s proposed short story collection which “aims to merge African cosmology and speculative elements, hinting at quantum-like entanglements between past, present and the spiritual world.” Her writing, which explores explores “epigenetic trauma and, ultimately, the reclamation of the desecrated archive of African intangible heritages,” takes inspiration from a range of African and Black diasporic authors including Octavia Butler, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nnedi Okorafor, K. Sello Duiker, as well as Malidoma Patrice Some and Credo Mutwa for their work on African spirituality and healing justice.

The Chris van Wyk Bursary has been annually awarded by Pan Macmillan South African since 2014. Previous recipients of the bursary include Terry-Ann Adams, Jarred Thompson, and Lidudumalingani Mqombothi. This bursary supports emerging South African talent and honors Chris van Wyk’s “enduring commitment to nurturing powerful new voices.”

Pan Macmillan publisher Andrea Nattrass expressed the organization’s confidence in Ngemntu’s future contributions to the South African literary space. Stacy Hardy, Head of Wits Creative Writing, further praised Ngemntu’s work as exemplifying the “transformative power of storytelling.”

In talking about her future, Ngemntu shares

I simply want to thrive – to write dangerously and defiantly in a world that insists on my silencing and erasure. In so doing, I wish that my writing stands testimony to the wealth of stories we may yet tell if we ignore the noise and let the voices of the land speak.

Congratulations to Vuyokazi Ngemntu!