PUBLISH’D AFRIKA and its subsidiaries – PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Online Literary Magazine, Adopt-An-Author Program and the Short Story Competition’s Spoiling The Broth – jointly scooped two awards in the month of May, 2025. PUBLISH’D AFRIKA as a company was shortlisted for the Mpumalanga Hollywood Foundation’s Bambelela Business Awards, along with 136 companies plying their trade in the province. After a grueling three days that started off with a business seminar on Monday, 26 May, the pitching and exhibition for funding on Tuesday 27 May, and ultimately the awards on Wednesday night, 28 May, PUBLISH’D AFRIKA emerged as one of the 17 top businesses in Mpumalanga. We walked away with a R40 000 prize money to be invested towards the equipment the business needs. This was fresh on the heels of having been awarded the South Africa-Zimbabwe Excellence Award in the Creative Arts, at the Sandton Hotel in Johannesburg on Saturday, 24 May. PUBLISH’D AFRIKA’s Sukoluhle Nontokozo Mdlongwa accepted the award on behalf of company. Although we have assisted over 150 authors to publish their books since 2021, it was PUBLISH’D AFRIKA’s Adopt-An-Author Program, the online literary magazine, and the Spoiling The Broth Short Story Competition that resonated the most with the Bambelela Business Awards judges. PUBLISH’D AFRIKA continues to invest over R25 000 annually into the three initiatives in a bid to unearth and nurture writing talent across the continent. “Although we didn’t clinch the top prize of R130 000, I believe being selected as one of 17 top businesses in the province we operate in is enough recognition for the work we do,” said Thokozani Magagula, co-founder of PUBLISH’D AFRIKA. “The judges were also impressed by the fact that we are a team of two – my wife Sukoluhle and I – and that in a space of only four years, we have managed to put the company where it is today. ”In 2022, PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Online Magazine was received a R200 000 funding from the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the Presidential Employment Stimulus 3. In 2024, the Spoiling The Broth and Adopt-An-Author Program received a R80 000 funding from the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the Presidential Employment Stimulus 5. We also achieved an even bigger feat when the Department of Education in Gauteng recommended 12 of the books we had published, even though they later procured only six. Three of the titles we have published have also been procured by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture in both Gauteng and North-West, with another order having been placed for another title this week. So far, PUBLISH’D AFRIKA’s Adopt-An-Author Program and the Spoiling The Broth have managed to unearth a total of 35 writing talents since the initiatives were launched in 2011. A total of 12 budding writers have already been discovered since the Spoiling The Broth initiative re-started this year.
PUBLISH'D AFRIKA 