Maurice Gee wins top prize at Montana Awards

Judges described Maurice Gee's Blindsight as a narrative tour de fource. Picture / Mark Coote

WELLINGTON - Maurice Gee won the top prize at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006 today.

His novel Blindsight, described as a narrative tour de force, won the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry.

The judges said the novel had a strong ending that made the reader reinterpret everything that had gone before.

"It is a worthy addition to the oeuvre of this country's greatest living novelist."

The awards, New Zealand's most celebrated for contemporary writing, were presented at a ceremony at SkyCity in Auckland tonight.

Pohutukawa & Rata: New Zealand's Iron-hearted Trees by Philip Simpson won the Montana Medal for non fiction.

The judges said it was a valuable reference book, with a strong environmental message.

"It was very readable and gives a greater understanding of the unique nature of this group of native New Zealand flora.

"Clear text and well-selected and presented illustrations make this an outstanding publication," Lawrence Jones, one of the judges said.

The public vote for the Readers' Choice Award was evenly split between two books.

Blindsight and Fiona Kidman's The Captive Wife were joint winners, with voting was close and the winner impossible to pick.

Mr Jones said the judges were impressed with how well New Zealand writing and publishing served a diverse reading public.

"For a society with a comparatively small population base, the range of what is being written and published is great indeed, and across that range the quality is high."

The judges were Mr Jones, Linda Burgess and Bob Ross.

The full list of winners:

* Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry and Fiction category winner - Blindsight by Maurice Gee

* Fiction runners-up: Responsibility by Nigel Cox; and The Captive Wife by Fiona Kidman

* Poetry: Lifted by Bill Manhire

* Montana Medal for non-fiction, and Environment category: Pohutukawa & Rata: New Zealand's Iron-hearted Trees by Philip Simpson

* Biography: Dingle: Discovering the Sense in Adventure by Graeme Dingle

* History: Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s-1950s by Rosemary McLeod

* Reference and Anthology: Great Sporting Moments: The Best of Sport magazine 1988-2004, edited by Damien Wilkins

* Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture: How to Look at a Painting by Justin Paton

* Illustrative: Contemporary New Zealand Photographers edited by Hannah Holm and Lara Strongman.

- NZPA