By Sam Ackerman, The Big Idea
The winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction will receive $65,000 and each of the other main category winners will receive $12,000. Photo: 123RF
A host of former winners and a healthy injection of first-time writers are in the running for some of the top literary prizes in Aotearoa, with the nominations in for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
From the 175 entries, the judging panels have whittled down the longlist for the prestigious awards to 43 books across four categories.
New Zealand Book Awards Trust chair Nicola Legat states "Across poetry, prose and non-fiction the list includes books by some of our finest thinkers and most inventive writers. Some tackle today's burning issues and others are entertaining and escapist reads. All deserve our admiration.
"The 2025 longlist is one of great riches. The judges have a difficult job ahead of them to select the shortlists and eventual winners."
The competition for the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction is especially fierce, with three former winners among the ten nominations.
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe, Waitaha) is one of the headline names, with Kataraina - the sequel to her 2020 winning book Aūe - in the running for the richest prize in New Zealand literature.
She's up against 2011's fiction winner Laurence Fearnley's latest novel At the Grand Glacier Hotel and 2013 champion Kirsty Gunn's Pretty Ugly.
There are also a couple of former finalists looking to go one better, with Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) up for The Mires and Damien Wilkins nominated for Delirious.
There's also buzz around novelist Carl Shuker's chances. There was plenty of noise when The Mistake (now a feature film) didn't make the 2020 shortlist. Many in the fiction world are tipping big things for his 2025 contender, The Royal Free.
Award-winning poet Louise Wallace's foray into novels with Ash has earned her a nomination, along with former NZ Young Adult Fiction winner Shilo Kino for All That We Know.
Two of the nine first-time authors to make the longlists round out the impressive fiction field with Amma by Saraid de Silva and Michelle Rahurahu (Ngāti Rahurahu, Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whaoa) with Poorhara earning recognition.
Another debut book is in the mix is Rex Letoa Paget's Manualiʻi for the $12,000 Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry. He's in fine company, with former winner and highly decorated poet C.K. Stead the biggest name with In the Half Light of a Dying Day.
Internationally acclaimed speculative writer Lee Murray - a five-time winner at the Bram Stoker Awards and freshly minted Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit - looks to add to her accolades with Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud.
Former NZ Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature winner Emma Neale is back on the Ockham longlist with Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit, as is Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) with Hopurangi - Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka.
Multi-faceted artist Richard von Sturmer is put forward for Slender Volumes - not to be confused with fellow poetry longlister Slim Volume by James Brown - while two-time Katherine Mansfield Award winner Tracey Slaughter makes the top 10 with The Girls in the Red House are Singing, along with Carin Smeaton (Hibiscus Tart) and Alison Glenny (/Slanted).
The $12,000 General Non-Fiction Award longlist contains a potential history maker.
Airini Beautrais is no stranger to the Ockham NZ Awards - and its previous incarnations - having sensationally won the 2021 Jann Medlicott fiction prize for Bug Week & Other Stories (only the second short story collection to do so) and the Best First Book Award for Poetry in 2007 with Secret Heart.
Now she's aiming to win a remarkable third category, with her poignant personal collection The Beautiful Afternoon in consideration.
Another Ockham favourite, historian Vincent O'Malley, is also hunting another Ockham to go with his 2022 triumph in this category with The Invasion of Waikato Te Riri ki Tainui, along with 2018 winner Diana Witchel, up again for Unreel: A Life in Review.
It's the largest field in this year's awards - with the judging panel of Holly Walker, Ross Calman and Gilbert Wong using their discretion to expand the General Non-Fiction longlist to 13 titles to reflect the greater number of entries and range of genres in this category.
A quartet of debut books are among them, with Bad Archive by Flora Feltham, Feijoa: A Story of Obsession & Belonging by Kate Evans, The Chthonic Cycle by Una Cruickshank and The Twisted Chain by Jason Gurney.
Michael Belgrave (Becoming Aotearoa: A New History of New Zealand), Peter Walker (Hard by the Cloud House) Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku (Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery), Dave Hansford (Kahurangi: The Nature of Kahurangi National Park and Northwest Nelson), Megan Dunn (The Mermaid Chronicles: A Midlife Mer-moir) and Richard Shaw (The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation) have also made longlist consideration.
There's plenty of variety in the $12,000 BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction category as well, with art books among the contenders.
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson is pitted against first-time published author Kirsty Baker's Sight Lines: Women and Art in Aotearoa and Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art by Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) and Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī).
The powerhouses behind Lagi-Maama creative consultancy, Toluma'anave Barbara Makuati-Afitu, Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai, Hikule'o Fe'aomoeako Melaia Māhina, Molima Nolly Pihigia and Janson Chau have combined for longlisted Fenoga Tāonga Niue I Aotearoa: Niue Heritage Journey in Aotearoa, while another cultural perspective is represented by by Phoebe H. Li's Golden Enterprise: New Zealand Chinese Merchants 1860s-1970s.
New Zealand history books are also in the running, with A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa by Catherine Hammond and Shaun Higgins, as well as Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa by Matiu Baker (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue), Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald and Rebecca Rice.
And Aotearoa's bush and rural beauty gets the spotlight with Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer by Athol McCredie, David Young and Naomi Arnold's Force of Nature Te Aumangea o Te Ao Tūroa: A ConservationHistory of Forest & Bird 1923-2023 and debutant author Sam Gibson's self-titled Sam the Trap Man: Cracking Yarns and Tall Tales from the Bush.
The final four for each category will be announced on 5 March, with the winners - and the four Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards recipients - revealed at the gala event on 14 May during the Auckland Writers Festival.
This article was originally published by The Big Idea.
Photo: Supplied/ONZBA
The 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlisted books are:
*represents debut authors
Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto) (Moa Press)
Amma by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press)*
Ash by Louise Wallace (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Kataraina by Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe, Waitaha) (Mākaro Press)
Poorhara by Michelle Rahurahu (Ngāti Rahurahu, Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whaoa) (Te Herenga Waka University Press)*
Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn (Otago University Press)
The Mires by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) (Ultimo Press)
The Royal Free by Carl Shuker (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray (The Cuba Press)
Hibiscus Tart by Carin Smeaton (Titus Books)
Hopurangi - Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka by Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) (Auckland University Press)
In the Half Light of a Dying Day by C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press)
Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit by Emma Neale (Otago University Press)
Manuali ʻi by Rex Letoa Paget (Saufoʻi Press)*
/Slanted by Alison Glenny (Compound Press)
Slender Volumes by Richard von Sturmer (Spoor Books)
Slim Volume by James Brown (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
The Girls in the Red House are Singing by Tracey Slaughter (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa by Catherine Hammond and Shaun Higgins (Auckland University Press)
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson (Massey University Press)
Fenoga Tāonga Niue I Aotearoa: Niue Heritage Journey in Aotearoa by Molima Nolly Pihigia, Toluma'anave Barbara Makuati-Afitu, Kolokesa Uafā Māhina-Tuai, Hikule'o Fe'aomoeako Melaia Māhina and Janson Chau (Mafola Press)
Force of Nature Te Aumangea o Te Ao Tūroa: A Conservation History of Forest & Bird 1923-2023 by David Young and Naomi Arnold (Potton & Burton)
Golden Enterprise: New Zealand Chinese Merchants 1860s-1970s by Phoebe H. Li (Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust)
Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer by Athol McCredie (Te Papa Press)
Sam the Trap Man: Cracking Yarns and Tall Tales from the Bush by Sam Gibson (Allen & Unwin New Zealand)*
Sight Lines: Women and Art in Aotearoa by Kirsty Baker (Auckland University Press)*
Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa by Matiu Baker (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue), Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald and Rebecca Rice (Te Papa Press)
Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art by Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) and Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī) (Auckland University Press)
General Non-Fiction Award
Bad Archive by Flora Feltham (Te Herenga Waka University Press)*
Becoming Aotearoa: A New History of New Zealand by Michael Belgrave (Massey University Press)
Feijoa: A Story of Obsession & Belonging by Kate Evans (Moa Press)*
Hard by the Cloud House by Peter Walker (Massey University Press)
Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery by Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) (HarperCollins Publishers Aotearoa New Zealand)
Kahurangi: The Nature of Kahurangi National Park and Northwest Nelson by Dave Hansford (Potton & Burton)
The Beautiful Afternoon by Airini Beautrais (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
The Chthonic Cycle by Una Cruickshank (Te Herenga Waka University Press)*
The Invasion of Waikato Te Riri ki Tainui by Vincent O'Malley (Bridget Williams Books)
The Mermaid Chronicles: A Midlife Mer-moir by Megan Dunn (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
The Twisted Chain by Jason Gurney (Ngāpuhi) (Otago University Press)*
The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press)
Unreel: A Life in Review by Diana Wichtel (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are supported by Ockham Residential, Creative New Zealand, the late Jann Medlicott and the Acorn Foundation, Mary and Peter Biggs CNZM, Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand, The Mātātuhi Foundation and the Auckland Writers Festival.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
