Lionness Rampant

What a night! The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards once again delivered a glittering evening of words and wonder at the Aotea Centre last month. The Ockham Collective's Nigel Gavin and his band provided the musical momentum, playing from the side of the stage as the nervous nominees prepared to read from their shortlisted works.

The big winner was Emily Perkins (second from left), who took out the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction for her novel Lioness, which was described by the judges as ‘Disturbing, smart, and funny as hell’.

The other main awards went to Grace Yee for poetry (Chinese Fish), Gregory O’Brien for illustrated non-fiction (Don Binney: Flight Path) and Damon Salesa for general non-fiction (An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays). The Best First Book awards went to Emma Hislop for fiction (Ruin and Other Stories), Megan Kitching for poetry (At the Point of Seeing), Ryan Bodman for illustrated non-fiction (Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History) and Emma Wehipeihana for general non-fiction (There’s a Cure for This).

Congratulations to all the winners, the many excellent nominees and to the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa for putting on such an enjoyable show.