John Eppel and Julius Chingono’s Together nominated for a Pushcart Prize

Together, which features stories and poems by John Eppel and the late Julius Chingono, was co-published earlier this year by ’amaBooks of Bulawayo, the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press and the University of New Orleans Press.

The Pushcart Prize, published every year since 1976, is considered the most honoured literary project in America. It is a prize for the best “poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot” published in the small presses of America over the previous year. The work of John Eppel and Julius Chingono qualifies because of the co-publication with the University of New Orleans Press.

The founding editors for the Pushcart Prize were Anais Nin, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Newman, Daniel Halpern, Gordon Lish, Harry Smith, Hugh Fox, Ishmael Reed, Joyce Carol Oates, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph, Leslie Fiedler, Nona Balakian, Paul Bowles, Paul Eagle, Ralph Ellison, Reynolds Price, Rhoda Schwartz, Richard Morris, Ted Wilentz, Tom Montag, and William Phillips.

Writers who were first noticed from being nominated for the prize include Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Rick Moody, and many more.

Together is available in outlets throughout Zimbabwe, South Africa and North America, and can also be purchased outside of those areas online through the African Books Collective and other websites.