Beautrais wins 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for fiction

Whanganui poet Airini Beautrais has won the NZ$57,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her collection of stories Bug Week (Victoria University Press), the author’s first work of fiction.

Kiran Dass, convenor of judges for the fiction prize, said of Bug Week: ‘Casting a devastating and witty eye on humanity at its most fallible and wonky, this is a tightly-wound and remarkably assured collection. Atmospheric and refined, these stories evoke a strong sense of quiet unease, slow burning rage and the absurdly comic.’

Chef and food writer Monique Fiso won two awards for her book Hiakai: Modern Māori Cuisine (Monique Fiso, Godwit), which took out both the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Nonfiction and the Judith Binney Prize for a best first work of illustrated nonfiction.

Nonfiction category convenor Dale Cousens said: ‘The recipes in Monique Fiso’s first, extraordinary book occupy fewer than half of its pages. The rest is a tour de force of Māori knowledge, written from a Māori perspective. For many of us this will be our introduction to the indigenous cuisine of our own land, and its ingredients, practice, culture, history and knowledge. Monique Fiso’s text is hard-won, inspiring and utterly original in scope; the book is also beautifully designed and photographed.’

The winners in all categories, including a discretionary Te Mūrau o te Tuhi Māori Language Award and the 2021 first book award categories, were announced at a ceremony during the Auckland Writers Festival on 12 May. They are:

Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

• Bug Week (Airini Beautrais, Victoria University Press)

General Nonfiction

• The Dark is Light Enough: Ralph Hotere a Biographical Portrait (Vincent O’Sullivan, Penguin)

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry

• The Savage Coloniser Book (Tusiata Avia, Victoria University Press)

Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Nonfiction

• Hiakai: Modern Māori Cuisine (Monique Fiso, Godwit).

Te Mūrau o te Tuhi Māori Language Award

• Mātāmua ko te Kupu! (Tā Tīmoti Kāretu, Auckland University Press)

The Hubert Church Prize for a Best First Book of Fiction

• Victory Park (Rachel Kerr, Mākaro Press)

The E H McCormick Prize for a Best First Work of General Nonfiction

• Specimen: Personal Essays (Madison Hamill, Victoria University Press).

The Jessie Mackay Prize for a Best First book of Poetry

• I Am a Human Being (Jackson Nieuwland, Compound Press)

The Judith Binney Prize for a Best First Work of Illustrated Nonfiction

• Hiakai: Modern Māori Cuisine (Monique Fiso, Godwit).

The winner of the fiction award receives NZ$57,000 (A$52,850), each first book award winner receives NZ$2500 (A$2320) and 12 months membership of the New Zealand Society of Authors, and the remaining category winners receive NZ$10,000 each (A$9270).

Shortlists for the awards were announced in March. For more information about the New Zealand Book Awards, click here.

Category: Awards Local news