Pan Macmillan

The Citizen and Macmillan South Africa are proud to announce the winner of the Citizen Book Prize 2009 – the only book prize decided by the reading public.

The Wewelsburg Covenant by Johan Broens is a gripping World War 2-to-present-day account of one man’s conflict against his Nazi upbringing.

Swayed by an unintentional and undeniable love affair, James Trevellian’s choices will eventually decide the fate of the world.

• Read The Wewelsburg Covenant synopsis

There were almost 1 000 votes across all the titles in the final week, with The Wewelsburg Covenant receiving a record number of votes for this competition.

Macmillan have taken the decision to not publish the manuscript in its current form (a right detailed in the Prize conditions), but Johan Broens still receives a R10 000 cash prize and a writing course sponsored by Macmillan.

Broens looked back on the process he’s been through. “I wrote the novel, since it had been my ambition for nearly 10 years to do so. “I resigned my position at a consultancy to wholly spend my time devoted to the novel. I could not foresee any other way of writing it,” he says.

“I wrote on a fulltime basis, every day of the week, for four to eight hours per day, for seven weeks. Although I was confident of my writing abilities, I was even amazed at how readily the words flowed from my mind,” Broens says.

“Writing, to me, came naturally, most probably due to my passion for writing, my fertile imagination and very wide general knowledge. I have reached a stage in my life where I want to be creative. What could be more creative than writing a novel?” Broens says.

“It is my absolute ambition to be an author for the rest of my life.”

The Wewelsburg Covenant should find a large audience.

“My intended audience would be the same as those targeted through novels by authors such as Frederick Forsyth, Wilbur Smith, Tom Clancy, Harry Patterson, etc,” says Broens.

“The novel, I believe, would appeal to a wide variety of people, as it contains much intrigue and is closely associated with historical fact,” he says.

“Most importantly,“It is a novel which is believable. It has an authentic ring to it, making the reader believe that such events could have happened.

“It also, on a personal level, addresses an issue that many people face in today’s world, namely prejudice,” Broens says.

“And people generally enjoy reading books about secret organisations and novels that span over generations.”

Watch The Citizen’s CitiVibe for a full interview with Johan Broens and more news about The Wewelsburg Covenant.