The inaugural $50,000 Acorn Foundation Literary Award has gone to 60-year-old Stephen Daisley, for his novel Coming Rain. The announcement was made this evening at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Photo: Stephen Daisley
Daisley is a former soldier in the NZ Army whose first book, Traitor, was published four years ago, and won a Prime Minister’s Award for Literature in Australia. Daisley, a farmer and shearer, lives in Western Australia.
“Coming Rain is a universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment. The prose is masterful, simple and moving," said the Fiction category convenor of judges, Jill Rawnsley.
"The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness."
Daisley is one of eight Ockham New Zealand Book Awards winners announced at the Auckland Town Hall ceremony tonight.
Dunedin writer and critic David Eggleton won the Poetry category for his collection The Conch Trumpet (Otago University Press), while Aroha Harris (Auckland), Atholl Anderson (Marlborough) and the late Judith Binney took the Illustrated Non-fiction award for Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History (Bridget Williams Books).
Well-known novelist Witi Ihimaera won the General Non-Fiction category for his memoir, Māori Boy: A Memoir of Childhood (Penguin Random House).
The awards, part of the Auckland Writers Festival, mark the end of a 12-month hiatus, and the arrival of new sponsorship.
Photo: Unknown
“This year’s winning books are testament to the sheer hard work and passion of their authors and a determination for excellence on the part of their publishers,' said New Zealand Book Awards Trust chair, Nicola Legat.
"These awards are vital to the health and progression of our literature."
“Tonight we honour New Zealand’s best writers of the last eighteen months and their extraordinary works," said Auckland Writers Festival director, Anne O’Brien.
"As the largest presenter of New Zealand literature in the world, we are proud to present the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and to showcase this country’s literary heroes alongside their international peers."
This year’s four open category awards winners will appear at a free event at the Auckland Writers Festival: The Winners’ Podium, Friday 13 May 5.30pm in the Upper NZI Room, Aotea Centre.
