Authors (clockwise from top left) Emily Perkins, Stephen Daisley, Eleanor Catton and Pip Adam are finalists for New Zealand's top fiction award. Photo: Supplied
Four award-winning authors are in the running for the $65,000 fiction prize at this year's Ockham Book Awards.
Birnam Wood author Eleanor Catton, Lioness author Emily Perkins, Audition author Pip Adam, and A Better Place author Stephen Daisley are finalists for New Zealand's top fiction award.
"They've all won this award once before, and I can't think of another year where there have been previous winners coming back and they're all up against each other," NZ Book Awards Trust chair Nicola Legat said.
"Often you find that writers are always great friends, so I'm sure they're feeling... they'd love to win but they'd also love to see their friends win too."
The four novelists are joined by 12 more authors competing for poetry and non-fiction awards.
"There's four main categories: fiction, poetry, general non-fiction and illustrated non-fiction, and there's also four 'best first book' awards in those same categories," Legat said.
The finalists were chosen at the end of a months-long selection process.
"There were about 150 books in the long-list, then that came down to 44 [for the short-list]," she said.
"[The judges] started in about August last year. It's been an enormous amount of reading for them, often the books are read by them many times as they go through their processes to whittle it down."
The winners will be announced at the 2024 Auckland Writers Festival in May and take home a share of the total $140,000 prize pool.
"The biggest prize is of course the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction which is an amazing $65,000," Legat said.
Selecting an overall best book was a lengthy and challenging process for the judges.
"It's literary excellence in the main... is this book beautifully crafted? Is it a strong narrative? How profound is this book? It's very difficult for the judges because the standard of fiction in New Zealand at the moment is so incredibly high," she said.
"It's more than just a story, there is something about the craft of being a novelist shining through."
At the end of the day, Legat said the win would be decided by a gut feeling.
"The judges, in the end, they've read the books over and over again. I would imagine [the winner] is the book that lingers with you, you just know."
Four more awards were open to first-time authors. Legat said avid readers should take note of the emerging talent in those categories.
"Often for writers who win that award it's the start of a great career trajectory. Eleanor Catton won that award for her very first novel, it's kind of a launching pad," Legat said.
"There's quite a bit of pedigree. The winners are often a who's who of New Zealand writers."
She said the variety and quality of the finalists showed the strength of Aotearoa's literature industry.
"[The industry] is in really good heart. There's just been the most amazing amount of publishing, the audiences at writers festivals remain really strong," she said.
"There's still enormous interest in books and our New Zealand authors are becoming quite famous national figures."
Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Finalists:
Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
A Better Place by Stephen Daisley (Text Publishing)
Audition by Pip Adam (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury)
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
At the Point of Seeing by Megan Kitching (Otago University Press) *
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee (Giramondo Publishing) *
Root Leaf Flower Fruit by Bill Nelson (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Talia by Isla Huia (Te Āti Haunui a-Pāpārangi, Uenuku) (Dead Bird Books) *
Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Don Binney: Flight Path by Gregory O'Brien (Auckland University Press)
Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager's Field Guide by Liv Sisson (Penguin, Penguin Random House)*
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills by Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds, Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi) (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Rugby League in New Zealand: A People's History by Ryan Bodman (Bridget Williams Books)*
General Non-Fiction Award
An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays by Damon Salesa (Bridget Williams Books)
Laughing at the Dark: A Memoir by Barbara Else (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Waka by Jeff Evans (Massey University Press)
There's a Cure for This by Emma Espiner (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) (Penguin, Penguin Random House) *
* Debut authors
