Today the New Zealand Book Awards 2024 announced their winners. Known as The Ockham’s they are regarded as the country’s premier literary honours for books written by New Zealanders.

Awards are given for Fiction (the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction), Poetry (the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry), Illustrated Non-Fiction (the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction) and General Non-Fiction.

There are also four awards for first-time authors (the Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards) and, at the judges’ discretion, Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, a Māori Language Award.

Auckland Writer’s Festival | Waituhi O Tāmaki 2024

The announcement of the winners, hosted by Jack Tame coincided with the beginning of the annual Auckland Writer’s Festival, running from 14 – 19 May, 2024.

The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

From a shortlist of four novels, the winner of the Fiction award is Emily Perkins for Lioness.

A searing and urgent novel crackling with tension and intelligence, Lioness starts with a hiss and ends with a roar as protagonist Therese’s dawning awareness and growing rage reveals itself.

At first glance this is a psychological thriller about a privileged wealthy family and its unravelling. Look closer and it is an incisive exploration of wealth, power, class, female rage, and the search for authenticity.

Emily Perkins deftly wrangles a large cast of characters in vivid technicolour, giving each their moment in the sun, while dexterously weaving together multiple plotlines. Her acute observations and razor-sharp wit decimate the tropes of mid-life in moments of pure prose brilliance, leaving the reader gasping for more. Disturbing, deep, smart, and funny as hell, Lioness is unforgettable.

Author, Emily Perkins

Emily Perkins is an award-winning writer living in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her books include the Women’s Prize longlisted The Forrests, Novel About My Wife, winner of the Believer Book of the Year Award and the Montana Medal for Fiction, and the short story collection Not Her Real Name, winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.

She also writes for theatre, film and television, including the original play The Made and an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Doll’s House, both with Auckland Theatre Company. With director Alison Maclean, she co-wrote the feature film The Rehearsal, adapted from Eleanor Catton’s novel.

Emily has taught creative writing and was the host of TVNZ’s books programme The Good Word. She is a member of the UK’s Folio Academy, an Arts Foundation Laureate, and a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.

Other Category Winners

The winner of the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction was Gregory O’Brien for Don Binney: Flight Path, an illustrated account of the life and work of one of NZ’s most iconic artists.

The Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry went to Grace Yee for her fusion of Cantonese-Taishanese and English collection that moves between old newspaper cuttings, advertisements, letters, recipes, cultural theory, and dialogue, evoking the unsettledness of migration, Chinese Fish.

The General Non-Fiction Award went to Damon Salesa for An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays and the Maori Language Award went to Tā Pou Temara (Ngāi Tūhoe) for Te Rautakitahi o Tūhoe ki Ōrākau.

I read Lioness in the summer of 2023 and found it a compelling thought provoking read, where there is as much going on beneath the surface of scenes depicted, in the spaces its protagonist inhabits, observing those around her, as there was in their reality. While reading, it felt like I hadn’t read anything that had done this before, it provoked hyper-vigilant observations, readers will likely have strong opinions about the characters, it’s almost impossible not to.

I’m happy to see Emily Perkins‘ work being celebrated, there is often a frisson of excitement around one of her novels coming out, her readership extending much beyond NZ.

Have you read Lioness? What did you think of it?