Monday, October 21, 2013

2013 PRIME MINISTER’S AWARDS FOR LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT: WINNERS ANNOUNCED


Three of New Zealand’s finest writers, Owen Marshall, Michele Leggott and Martin Edmond, will receive the 2013 Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement, Creative New Zealand announced today.

Each will be awarded $60,000 in recognition of their outstanding contribution to New Zealand literature. Owen Marshall will be honoured for fiction, Michele Leggott for poetry and Martin Edmond for non-fiction.

In congratulating the winners, the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Hon Chris Finlayson, said: “Last week, the excitement and export potential of New Zealand literature were obvious when Eleanor Catton became the youngest writer ever to win the Man Booker Prize. Every year, the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement reward our most committed writers in three genres, and make clear the Government’s on-going commitment to creating our national literature.”

The Awards are administered by Creative New Zealand.  Arts Council Chairman, Dr Dick Grant, also congratulated the writers. “These awards recognise the rich contribution New Zealand writers make to our artistic life. Each year, they serve to underscore the extraordinary quality and variety of our literature.”


The writers will receive their awards in a ceremony held at Premier House, Wellington, on Tuesday 29 October. 
 The 2013 Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship winner, Fiona Farrell, will also be honoured at the ceremony.

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