Thirteen Cents

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Thirteen Cents is the debut novel of South African author K. Sello Duiker. It was published in 2000 to critical acclaim and immediate success in South Africa and abroad, winning the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, Africa.^{[1]: viii [2]: 44} The first edition of Thirteen Cents outside South Africa was published by Ohio University Press in 2013 as part of the Modern African Writing series with an introduction by Professor Shaun Viljoen.

The novel is set in post-apartheid South Africa and depicts the brutal reality of South African street children.^[3]: 37 As a crime novel and bildungsroman, it follows the 12-year-old orphan Azure and his efforts to survive on the streets of Cape Town amidst an underworld of gangsters, drug use, violence, and prostitution. The novel addresses serious themes including sexual exploitation, corruption, and drug use. As a social-political novel, it critiques the ongoing social injustice in post-apartheid South Africa.