Press Release – Ockham Book Awards
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards is a highly anticipated event on the annual arts calendar, and one category that continues to gain interest is the Best First Book Awards, sponsored by MitoQ.
The Best First Book Awards recognise work of quality by an author for whom the entry is their first published book. For the third year running, MitoQ has sponsored the category, giving new writers a financial boost and recognition to help them focus on pursuing a writing career.
The Best First Book Awards category has seen steady growth in submission numbers since its introduction to the Book Awards in 1996. In 2021, 50 books entered were from debut authors, nearly a third of all submissions.
Fiso won the first book award for illustrated non-fiction for her
Hiakai: Modern Māori “
Hiakai weaves understanding of our unique environment, hunting, foraging, cooking, eating and preserving into an expansive but very accessible offering. Fiso does not shy away from unusual ingredients and this makes it all the more fascinating,” judge Dale Cousens said. Kerr won for her
Ross Giblin/Stuff
Chef Monique Fiso at her restaurant Hiakai. Judge Kiran Dass said Kerr’s novel impressed with its “big-hearted social realism . which follows the quiet heroics of a widowed solo mother of squeezed means”. “Sensitively examining the emotional and mental labour of being careful with money and the blind spots people have when they don’t need to worry about it, this quietly powerful novel is about privilege, community, compassion and care,” Dass said.
Thursday, 13 May 2021, 9:24 am
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards is a highly
anticipated event on the annual arts calendar, and one
category that continues to gain interest is the Best First
Book Awards, sponsored by MitoQ.
The Best First Book
Awards recognise work of quality by an author for whom the
entry is their first published book. For the third year
running, MitoQ has sponsored the category, giving new
writers a financial boost and recognition to help them focus
on pursuing a writing career.
The Best First Book
Awards category has seen steady growth in submission numbers
since its introduction to the Book Awards in 1996. In 2021,
Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais a finalist in Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
3 Mar, 2021 12:00 AM
2 minutes to read
Airini Beautrais reading her poem at Pakaitore in a video from 2018.
Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais is a finalist in New Zealand s most prestigious book awards.
Beautrais first short story collection Bug Week and Other Stories was published in 2020 and made the longlist for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards last month.
Her book is now shortlisted to win the $57,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.
She is up against two past winners of the fiction award, Catherine Chidgey and Pip Adam, along with previous nominee Brannavan Gnanalingam.
Press Release – Ockham Book Awards
The shortlist for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, released today, is a dazzling reflection of the robust, innovative literature scene of Aotearoa New Zealand, revealing a deeper engagement with our culturally diverse society.
In the Fiction category, two past winners are vying for the same award. Catherine Chidgey and Pip Adam are both contenders for the $57,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, alongside Brannavan Gnanalingam, a previous nominee, and the critically acclaimed story writer Airini Beautrais.
The works on the Fiction shortlist explore the range of human experience, from the ‘wilful blindness’ of Nazi-occupied Germany demonstrated in