Emily Perkins beats Eleanor Catton to Ockham Book Awards’ big fiction prize

Emily Perkins has won the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards’ fiction prize with Lioness – a novel about class, privilege and female rage.

Other big winners at the national awards, announced in Auckland on Wednesday night, were Damon Salesa for An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays (general non-fiction), Gregory O’Brien for Don Binney: Flight Path (illustrated non-fiction) and Grace Yee for Chinese Fish (poetry).

Perkins’ Lioness took out the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction from a shortlist that also included 2013 Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, Pip Adam’s Audition and Stephen Daisley’s A Better Place.

Judges said at first glance, the winning novel was a psychological thriller about a privileged, moneyed family and its unravelling, but “look closer and it is an incisive exploration of wealth, power, class, female rage and the search for authenticity”.

Praised by reviewers for its constant flow of drama (”There’s enough here to rival a season of Shortland Street,” wrote 2021 fiction prize winner Airini Beautrais), the novel is Perkins’ fifth and her third major New Zealand book award win. In 2009, she took the fiction prize for Novel About My Wife and in 1997 was awarded best first fiction book for Not Her Real Name and Other Stories.

Known for fiction, theatre and screenwriting (she recently worked on TVNZ’s After the Party), Perkins is also a creative writing tutor, whose roles have included convening the MA Fiction workshop at Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters.

The Ockham Awards, presented at Auckland’s Aotea Centre on Wednesday night, recognised 16 finalists selected from a longlist of 44 books across four categories. Best “first book awards” went to Emma Hislop’s Ruin and Other Stories (fiction), Megan Kitching’s At the Point of Seeing (poetry), Ryan Bodman’s Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History (illustrated non-fiction) and Emma Wehipeihana (published as Emma Espiner) for There’s a Cure for This (general non-fiction).

The 2024 judging panels were convened by Juliet Blyth (fiction), Erik Kennedy (poetry), Lynn Freeman (illustrated non-fiction) and Jim Tully (general non-fiction).

In the poetry category, Grace Yee’s Chinese Fish was lauded by judges for its craft and the way it moves between old newspaper clippings, advertisements, recipes, cultural theory and dialogue to create “new archival poetics for the Chinese transtasman diaspora”.

Judges said Gregory O’Brien achieved a near-impossible task in the biography Don Binney: Flight Path, “offering a complete picture of this complex and creative man” – an artist who could be charming and curmudgeonly.

Damon Salesa’s An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays was described as a “seminal work” addressing contemporary social, political, economic, regional and international issues faced by Pacific nations in a collection that was both scholarly and accessible.

Three finalists – Stephen Daisley, Eleanor Catton (both for the fiction prize) and Grace Yee (poetry winner) – were not able to attend the ceremony.

2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards – full results

Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

Winner: Emily Perkins, Lioness, (Bloomsbury).

Finalists: Stephen Daisley, A Better Place, (Text Publishing); Pip Adam, Audition (Te Herenga Waka University Press); Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood (Te Herenga Waka University Press).

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry

Winner: Grace Yee, Chinese Fish (Giramondo Publishing).

Finalists: Megan Kitching, At the Point of Seeing (Otago University Press); Bill Nelson, Root Leaf Flower Fruit (Te Herenga Waka University Press); Isla Huia (Te Āti Haunui a-Pāpārangi, Uenuku) Talia (Dead Bird Books).

Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction

Winner: Gregory O’Brien, Don Binney: Flight Path (Auckland University Press).

Finalists: Liv Sisson, Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide (Penguin, Penguin Random House); Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds and Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi), Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills (Dunedin Public Art Gallery); Ryan Bodman, Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History (Bridget Williams Books).

General Non-Fiction Award

Winner: Damon Salesa, An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays (Bridget Williams Books).

Finalists: Barbara Else, Laughing at the Dark: A Memoir (Penguin, Penguin Random House); Jeff Evans, Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Waka (Massey University Press); Emma Wehipeihana (published as Emma Espiner) (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou), There’s a Cure for This (Penguin, Penguin Random House).

Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards

Hubert Church Prize for Fiction: Emma Hislop, Ruin and Other Stories (Te Herenga Waka University Press).

Jessie Mackay Prize for Poetry: Megan Kitching, At the Point of Seeing (Otago University Press)

Judith Binney Prize for Illustrated Non-Fiction: Ryan Bodman, Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History (Bridget Williams Books)

E.H. McCormick Prize for General Non-Fiction: Emma Wehipeihana (published as Emma Espiner) (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou), There’s a Cure for This (Penguin, Penguin Random House).

Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, a Māori language award awarded at the judges’ discretion went to academic, Waitangi Tribunal member, and Kīngi Tūheitia’s ‘Councilof Twelve’ member Tā Pou Temara KNZM (Ngāi Tūhoe) for Te Rautakitahi O Tūhoe kiŌrākau (Auckland University Press).