South African Secularist of the Year 2024
Joint winners of Secularist of the Year 2024 Zukiswa Wanner & Marianne Thamm
Award-winning author and activist Zukiswa Wanner, and investigative journalist, author and performer Marianne Thamm, are the joint winners of the South African Secular Society’s (SASS) Secularist of the Year Award 2024.
Members of the SASS felt that both were such strong contenders that it was decided to award the title jointly for the first time since the awards were introduced in 2017.
Zukiswa Wanner is an acclaimed South African author, essayist, curator, editor and publisher. Her activism includes gender justice, social justice and secularism. As a socio-politico commentator she upholds a humanist approach, providing a positive role model of courage, integrity and the need to bear witness.
She has authored twelve books, seven of which are novels. Some of them have won important awards in South Africa. She also runs a publishing house, Paivapo, which she founded.
As an opinion journalist she has written columns for South Africa’s Mail and Guardian and True Love, for Germany’s Sueddetsche Zeitung, for UK’s New African Magazine, and for Kenya’s Saturday Nation and Weekend Star. Her activism includes gender justice, social justice and secularism.
She was awarded the title of African of the Year for 2024 by The Continent, which is a journal of African journalism. The citation for the award, published in Issue 186, 14 December, 2024 among other things states: “In March, the first African woman to receive the Goethe Medal – one of Germany’s highest honours – returned it to the German Embassy in Nairobi in protest against Germany’s ‘continued support’ of Israeli’s genocide in Gaza.” Marianne Thamm is a South African investigative journalist, author and performer. She is the assistant editor of the Daily Maverick and has written several books. Ms Thamm describes herself as an “agnostic and quantum curious”.
One meaning of the term secular is “relating to worldly rather than religious matters.” In her work as a journalist of great integrity, Ms Thamm has devoted herself to the protection of our young democracy. Through her writing on the Daily Maverick she enables her readers to make better decisions and have better conversations.
She has an unwavering commitment to humanist values. Her tireless efforts in championing a more inclusive, just and corruption-free society have had a positive impact within our country.
As a storyteller, she bears witness to pain and violence, as much as to hope, resilience, fortitude and determination.
Not only does she defend truth, but she also steadfastly promotes the value of the arts.
Through her work in what she calls “performance journalism” she explains why South Africans do and should have reason for hope. Her words have weight, and bring about a positive shift in her audience.
The award goes to the individual or organisation that the judges consider to have made a great contribution to the advancement of the just treatment of South African citizens by their government and society.
