Higgins, a research sociologist at Lincoln University in Christchurch, has won $10,000 and a publishing contract with Text Publishing. Her debut novel, THE BRIDGE will be published in Australia and New Zealand in August 2011.
Higgins described her win as 'a tremendous thrill'.
'I’m enormously excited at the prospect of working with the people at Text. I think that the best young adult fiction integrates powerful story-telling about individual lives with the big ideas that young people grapple with—and I see just that combination in Text books. I couldn’t be more delighted.'
The Text Prize is awarded annually to the best manuscript written by an Australian or New Zealander for a young adult or children's audience.
2010 was a bumper year for the prize: Text will also publish two other novels unearthed among this year's entries—Cory Taylor's ME AND MR BOOKER and Mette Jakobsen's THE STORY OF MINOU. Both will be published in 2011 on the adult fiction list.
In its three year life the prize has been awarded twice to New Zealanders: Wanganui-born Richard Newsome took out the inaugural award in 2008 for THE BILLIONAIRE'S CURSE, shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Award in 2009 and an ABIA in 2010. In 2009 the prize was won by Melbourne bookseller and author Leanne Hall, for THIS IS SHYNESS, released in Australia and New Zealand in August 2010.
Rights to THE BILLIONAIRE'S CURSE have been sold in six territories worldwide and prior to publication THIS IS SHYNESS has been sold in two territories.
Publisher Michael Heyward congratulated Higgins on her novel and said the third year of the prize saw the standard of entries increase significantly.
'THE BRIDGE is a superbly written, fast paced adventure set in a world in which just about everything has gone wrong,' Heyward said.
'Jane Higgins' cast of characters must make life and death decisions to survive, but this novel is also about choices, about connections, and the quest for identity. It asks essential questions: Who am I? Where do I belong?
'It is a thoroughly deserving winner of The Text Prize, and we know it will find a lot of fans. We very much look forward to putting THE BRIDGE on the international rights market ahead of publication.'
THE BRIDGE is set in a war-torn city in 2199. It is the story of 16-year-old Nik, who dreams of being chosen for the Intelligence Services—it’s either that or be conscripted to fight Breken hostiles over the river on Southside. He doesn’t know that the military has other plans for him. When his school is bombed and his young friend Sol is kidnapped by hostiles, Nik and Sol’s sister, Fyffe, track the kidnappers into the Southside slums. When Fyffe disappears, Nik infiltrates Breken high command. There he discovers the truth about the hostiles, their uprising and his own past.
Footnote
Morrin Rout advises that Jane Higgins
"is one of Hagley Writers' Institute's inaugural students and won the prize last year jointly for best folio - we are so proud of her!"
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