NZ POST NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

 

Random House  (NZ) authors Owen Marshall (Living As A Moon) and Fiona Farrell (Limestone), are two of the three fiction finalists in this year’s awards.  The third is Alison Wong, whose novel As the Earth Turns Silver was published by the Penguin Group.

There are now only two categories in non-fiction: general and illustrated.  In the general division the finalists are Anne Salmond's Aphrodite's Island (Penguin Group), Behond the Battlefield by Gerald Hensley (also Penguin), Cone Ten Down by Moyra Elliott and Damion Skinner (David Bateman), Encircled Lands by Judith Binney (Bridget Williams), and The Invention of New Zealand Art and National Identity by Frances Pound (Auckland University Press).

In the illustrated nonfiction category finalists are Al Brown for Go Fish (Random House), Art at Te Papa by William McAloon (Te Papa Press), Maori Architecture by Deirdre Brown (Penguin Group), Marti Friedlander by Leonard Bell (Auckland University Press), and Mrkusich by Alan Wright and Edward Harfling.

The poetry section has three finalists: Just This by Brian Turner (Victoria University Press), The Lustre Jug by Bernadette Hall (Victoria University Press), and the intriguingly titled The Tram Conductor's Blue Cap by Michael Harlow (Auckland University Press).

The three prizes sponsored by the New Zealand Society of Authors have all been won.  The first book of fiction award went to Relief by Anna Taylor (Victoria University Press).  The Jessie MacKay award for first book of poetry went to Selina Tusitala Marsh's Fast Talking Pi (Auckland University Press), and
Pip Desmond, Trust: A True Story of Women and Gangs (Random House), was the winner of the best first book of non fiction.

The NZ Post awards will be announced on August 27 in Auckland.