The Ockham Awards
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are the country’s premier literary honours for books written by New Zealanders. First established in 1968 as the Wattie Book Awards (later the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards), they have also been known as the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the New Zealand Post Book Awards.
Awards are given for Fiction (the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction), Poetry (the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry), Illustrated Non-Fiction (the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction) and General Non-Fiction. There are also four awards for first-time authors and, at the judges’ discretion, Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, a Māori Language Award.
2023 Ockham Awards
The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
The 2020 shortlist is:
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Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant |
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised
by Alice Te Punga Somerville
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We're all made of lightning |
Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand
by Nick Bollinger
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Robin White: Something is Happening Here |
Secrets of the Sea: The Story of New Zealand’s Native Sea Creatures |
General Non Fiction Award
The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi
by Ned Fletcher
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A Fire in the Belly of Hineāmaru: A Collection of Narratives about Te Tai Tokerau Tūpuna |