Kenyan literary giant Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is 87 and has struggled with his health in recent years, but he still hopes to complete a new book.

Author, playwright and longtime champion of multiculturalism Ishmael Reed is receiving a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to literature.

South African author Damon Galgut won the Booker Prize for fiction on Nov. 3 for his novel “The Promise,” the story of a white South African family in decline in the years before and after the end of the racist apartheid system.