NZ author wins Australia's richest prize

By MARGIE THOMSON and JEREMY REES

New Zealand author Lloyd Jones has won Australia's richest literary prize for his novel The Book of Fame, about the 1905 All Black tour of Europe.

But he admitted that he had considered pulling out of the A$40,000 ($43,600) Tasmania Pacific fiction prize when he learned of controversy that has dogged the prize this year.

Authors Peter Carey, Tim Winton, Richard Flanagan and Joan London boycotted the award in a protest against continued logging of old forests in Tasmania.

They were also upset that logging interests had sponsored the literary festival.

Jones told reporters in Australia he had considered pulling out, but as a New Zealander he felt remote from the argument.

"It is vile to chip natural forests and, yes, when this first surfaced I looked into it, absolutely.

"But it's a bit like reaching the finals of the 100m in the Olympics and finding someone has sprained their ankle, someone has the flu and someone falls over on the way to the race."

His novel was selected from 180 published in Australia, New Zealand and Melanesia in the past two years and his win makes it a clear run for New Zealand authors for the richest prize in the Pacific region: Elizabeth Knox's The Vintner's Luck won the inaugural prize in 2001.

Receiving his award from the Premier of Tasmania, Jim Bacon, in Hobart on Sunday night, Jones said that the prize redressed the balance of the literary world, which had previously had two poles: London and New York.

"This prize provides another pole," he said.

"It presents fantastic opportunities to cross-pollinate our literature with that of our neighbouring countries."

Penguin New Zealand marketing manager Penny Hartill said she hoped the prize would help to boost Jones' Australian sales.

The Book of Fame won New Zealand's most prestigious literary award, the Deutz Montana Medal for Fiction, in 2001.

Playwright Carl Nixon has adapted it for the stage (it opens at Wellington's Downstage on May 9), and film-maker Mark Joffe (Spotswood, Grievous Bodily Harm, The Man Who Sued God) has acquired the film rights.

Jones has not been involved in the adaptation.

"I'm not really interested," he said.

"Once you've done it there's no profit to be had in trying to re-imagine it. I'd rather just move on to the next thing."

In this case, the next thing is an almost-completed novel, Paint Your Wife.

Jones won't reveal any details, though, for fear of inviting bad luck.