After a
12-month hiatus, the country’s premier book awards will return in 2016 with a
new structure, a new judging process and a significant, annual fiction prize of
$50,000.
The New
Zealand Book Awards winners will be announced at an event during the country’s
largest literary gathering - the Auckland Writers Festival - in May 2016.
The New
Zealand Book Awards Trust chair, Nicola Legat, says she is delighted to
announce the changes, and in particular the major fiction award, which is
provided by the Acorn Foundation, through the generosity of one of its donors.
“It creates
a tremendous and lasting literary legacy. The sum of $50,000 will be awarded to
the top fiction work annually, in perpetuity. This will make a difference not
only to the receiving writer, but also to the literary fabric of New Zealand.
It is a huge gift for us all.”
The Acorn Foundation is a Western Bay of Plenty-based
community foundation that encourages people to leave bequests in their wills,
or gifts during their lifetimes.
Acorn
Foundation’s Operation’s Manager, Margot McCool, says it is humbling to witness
such generosity.
“Since 2003
we have been encouraging generosity, so that people who really care about their
community can fulfil their wish of enabling organisations and causes they
believe in. We are so pleased that this award will make such a difference to
New Zealand novelists’ careers,” says Mrs McCool.
In addition
to an annual fiction winner, there will be a poetry, a general non-fiction and
an illustrated non-fiction winner and, should there be sufficient entries, a
Māori language award. The three Best First Book Awards will also continue.
Ms Legat
added that including the awards in the Auckland Writers Festival programme
ensures they reach more people.
“The New
Zealand Book Awards will be the first public event in the festival’s line-up.
With the festival growing exponentially year-on-year (55 percent in 2014 and a
further 17 percent in 2015), we are taking New Zealand writers to a huge
reading audience.”
Auckland
Writers Festival director Anne O’Brien says embracing the New Zealand Book
Awards was a natural fit.
“The
festival is committed to sharing a love of books and reading and to championing
and supporting New Zealand writers through exposure to thousands of
festival-goers each year. The New Zealand Book Awards are a celebration
of writing excellence and we’re delighted to offer them a home in the
festival’s programme,” says Ms O’Brien.
The four
main categories will be judged by specialist judges, three per category, plus a
Maori language adviser for the Maori language awards. The judges will
select a long list of around eight books in each category. It will be announced
in November 2015.
The
shortlist of four books in each of the categories will be announced in early
March 2016.
“The
changes to the judging process are a direct result of the consultation process
carried out by the Book Awards Trust in 2014. Having fewer books for each judge
to read, and having more specialist depth in each genre,
will allow a more detailed examination of the works,” says Ms Legat.
The call
for entries in the awards is scheduled for August 1 this year.
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