His 2004 novel, The Persistence of Memory, won the Koret Jewish Book Award in 2005, beating out The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.
[3][4] His mother, Liesel Weil was a from a well-to-do German Jewish family in Frankfurt that were adherents of Liberal Judaism.
[5] Cecil was the editor of the Golden City Post, a liberal newspaper catering to a black South African readership and advocating for the end of apartheid.
[15] Anderson Tepper, writing in The Forward, speculated that the novel "just might prove to be the [South African] Jewish community’s masterpiece.
[20][21][22][5][23] He acts as an Editorial Advisory Panel member for The Johannesburg Review of Books with Antjie Krog and Lauren Beukes, among others.