Listener Books Editor Mark Broatch on some surprising omissions in the newly-revealed Ockham NZ Book Awards longlist (scroll down for full list) and who he thinks will – and should – win in each category.
The fiction prize: A vintage crop
No doubt about it, it’s been a stellar year for New Zealand fiction. Many of our best writers had novels out, several debut writers made a splash, while the quality of non-fiction was also high. In this year’s Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, which hands a pulse-raising $64,000 prize to the winning author, the talent has blazed through. Half the finalists have previously made an appearance at these awards.
Catherine Chidgey has also won before (twice), as has Stephen Daisley, Pip Adam, Eleanor Catton and Emily Perkins. Anna Smaill was longlisted in 2016 - and also for the Booker for 2015′s The Chimes. A remarkable six out of 10 finalists come from one outfit, Te Herenga Waka University Press or THWUP, the publisher formerly known as VUP. And seven of the fiction longlist appeared in the Listener’s Top 100 books, so there’s that.
Who’s not there who might be? There are a couple of obvious omissions. Airana Ngarewa’s The Bone Tree (Hachette), the teacher-author’s dark though sharply written debut about Kauri and his little brother Black, who live free and truant days in the shadow of Mt Taranaki. Josie Shapiro’s Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts (A&U) is an uplifting, evocative debut about a talented runner and driven individual. Both were critically acclaimed and climbed the bestseller lists.
Also left out (again) was Carl Nixon, for The Waters (RHNZ Vintage), a family drama that is more a series of linked stories about a complex and troubled family that jumps between characters, points of view and decades. Fiona Farrell’s well received pandemic novel The Deck (RHNZ Vintage) was also passed over. The fiction longlist seems a return to the dominance of “literary” fiction. Unlike last year, there is no well-written, so-called midmarket or genre fiction, such as Kind by Stephanie Johnson (Vintage), Claire Baylis’ Dice (A&U) or The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer (Moa). This brings into focus the difference a judging panel can make.
Who will win?
Birnam Wood.
Emma Hislop’s Ruin for best debut.
Who should win?
Lioness.
Illustrated non-fiction prize: But where’s Gordon?
The Booksellers Aotearoa NZ Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction can’t be taken entirely seriously this year because it left out easily the best book in this category: Gordon Walters by critic Francis Pound (AUP), who died in 2017. It is a beautiful and erudite account of the New Zealand painter’s work, his unfolding artistic imagination and struggle for perfection, complete with hundreds of fantastically rendered illustrations. There are some attractive titles longlisted, such as Flora and Don Binney, but a few other surprising omissions, including Rewi by Jeremy Hansen and Jade Kake (MUP), a luxurious tribute to the late Māori architect and teacher Rewi Thompson; the handsome and absorbing Erebus the Ice Dragon: A Portrait of an Antarctic Volcano by Colin Monteath (MUP); and the fascinating Everest Mountain Guide by Guy Cotter (Potton & Burton). And there were no cookbooks; for example, Butter, Butter by Petra Galler (A&U), Good Vibes by Alby Hailes (HarperCollins) and Modern Chinese by Sam Low (A&U) are all missing. (Al Brown won the award and people’s choice one year for Go Fish.)
Who will win?
Don Binney; Liv Sisson’s Fungi of Aotearoa for debut.
Who should win?
Gordon Walters by Francis Pound.
General non-fiction: But where’s Sam?
Despite the general non-fiction award being allowed to stretch to 14 finalists for the second time to accommodate the growing category of essay-style books, it still leaves out some top books. Was Sam Neill’s Did I Ever Tell You This? A Memoir (Text) too charming, too amusing, its prose too friendly? No room either for Jenny McLeod: A Life in Music by Norman Meehan (THWUP), a vivid bio of one of our most brilliant composers; Waikato-born Catherine Taylor’s The Stirrings (Hachette), a lyrical, moving memoir; or Alie Benge’s essay-memoir Ithaca (THWUP). You’d like to hope that several of the chosen ones here read better than their esoteric titles might suggest.
Who will win?
An Indigenous Ocean by Damon Salesa. Emma Espiner’s There’s a Cure for This will take out debut.
Who should win?
Blood and Dirt, a well researched and original history of prison labour.
Poetry: Preaching the word
The Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry longlist this year includes some talented poets, though it’s sometimes hard to escape the idea that Ockham judges in this category often plump for the preachy and attitudinal over the word-clever or funny. Fine omitted collections included Deep Colour by Diana Bridge (OUP), Face to the Sky by Michele Leggott (AUP), A Lack of Good Sons by Jake Arthur (THWUP), Past Lives by Leah Dodd (THWUP), Respirator: A Poet Laureate Collection 2019-2022 by David Eggleton (OUP) and Saga by Hannah Mettner (THWUP)
Who will win?
Big Fat Brown Bitch by Tusiata Avia; Megan Kitching’s At The Point of Seeing will snatch debut.
Who should win?
Biter.
The full longlist
Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for New Zealand fiction (* indicates debut)
A Better Place by Stephen Daisley (Text)
Audition by Pip Adam (THWUP)
Backwaters by Emma Ling Sidnam (Text)*
Bird Life by Anna Smaill (THWUP)
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (THWUP)
Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury)
Pet by Catherine Chidgey (THWUP)
Ruin and Other Stories by Emma Hislop (THWUP)*
Signs of Life by Amy Head (THWUP)
Turncoat by Tīhema Baker (Lawrence & Gibson)
Booksellers Aotearoa NZ Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Don Binney: Flight Path by Gregory O’Brien (AUP)
Flora: Celebrating our Botanical World by Carlos Lehnebach et al (Te Papa)
Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide by Liv Sisson (Penguin)*
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills by Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds and Bridget Reweti (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Ngā Kaihanga Uku: Māori Clay Artists by Baye Riddell (Te Papa)*
Our Land in Colour: A History of Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1960 by Brendan Graham with Jock Phillips (HarperCollins)
Pacific Arts Aotearoa: The Powerful and Dynamic Legacy of Pacific Arts in Aotearoa, as told by the artists themselves by Lana Lopesi (editor) (Penguin)
Rugby League in NZ: A People’s History by Ryan Bodman (BWB)*
Sure to Rise: The Edmonds Story by Peter Alsop, Kate Parsonson and Richard Wolfe (Canterbury University Press)
Through Shaded Glass: Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1960 by Lissa Mitchell (Te Papa)*
General non-fiction
An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays by Damon Salesa (BWB)
Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand by Jared Davidson (BWB)
Commune: Chasing a Utopian Dream in Aotearoa by Olive Jones (Potton & Burton)*
End Times by Rebecca Priestley (THWUP)
Laughing at the Dark: A Memoir by Barbara Else (Penguin)
Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Waka by Jeff Evans (MUP)
Ora: Healing Ourselves: Indigenous Knowledge: Healing and Wellbeing edited by Leonie Pihama and Linda Tuhiwai-Smith (Huia)
Snorkelling the Abyss: One Woman, Striving to Survive, Fighting for Survivors by Jan Jordan (The Cuba Press)
Soundings: Diving for Stories in the Beckoning Sea by Kennedy Warne (MUP)
Takahē: Bird of Dreams by Alison Ballance (Potton & Burton)
The Drinking Game by Guyon Espiner (A&U)
The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa by Catherine Comyn (Economic and Social Research Aotearoa)*
The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati Te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement by Jeffrey Sissons (BWB)
There’s a Cure for This: A Memoir by Emma Espiner (Penguin)*
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
At the Point of Seeing by Megan Kitching (Otago University Press)*
Big Fat Brown Bitch by Tusiata Avia (THWUP)
Biter by Claudia Jardine (AUP)
Calamities! by Jane Arthur (THWUP)
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee (Giramondo)*
Root Leaf Flower Fruit by Bill Nelson (THWUP)
Say I Do This by CK Stead (AUP)
Talia by Isla Huia (Dead Bird Books)*
The Artist by Ruby Solly (THWUP)
When I Reach for Your Pulse by Rushi Vyas (OUP)
The Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlist is announced on March 6 and the winners on May 15 at a ceremony as part of the Auckland Writers Festival.
