New Zealand Listener 03.14.2020

MARCH 14 2020 LISTENER 49

the luck of the draw.

“People say that as a way of making

you feel better. In my observation of the

awards, it’s always a genuine effort by the

judges to recognise the best, and mostly

I think they do a pretty good job accord-

ing to their personal tastes and views.

And sometimes I think they’ve got it very

wrong.”

VUP’s works feature elsewhere in the

top fiction prize with Carl Shuker’s medi-

cal-themed novel A Mistake among those

shortlisted for the $55,000 Jann Medlicott

Acorn Prize for Fiction.

“There is some sort of small relief that,

as the publisher, you can unambiguously

back the last child you have in the race,”

says Barrowman of the recognition for

Shuker.

Among the four novels shortlisted

is Halibut on the Moon, by David Vann,

which is the

Alaskan-born writer’s

10th book and is a

fictionalised account

of his father’s suicide,

which he previously

wrote about in his

acclaimed 2008

fiction work Legend

of a Suicide. Vann

is a New Zealand

resident and has lived at Taupō Bay in the

Far North for 15 years, interspersed with

teaching in the UK. Halibut was published

on both sides of the Tasman by Australia’s

Text Publishing.

Another US-born writer with NZ resi-

dency, Steven Toussaint, who is married

to Eleanor Catton, features in the poetry

shortlist for his VUP-published collection

Lay Studies.

T

he book-award trust’s website states,

“Our stories, written for us by our

writers”. Morris says just as New

Zealanders living overseas are allowed to

enter, foreign writers with NZ residency

are eligible.

Past expatriate winners have included

Australia-based Stephen Daisley for

Coming Rain (2016) and Scotland-based

Kirsty Gunn for The Big Music (in the

previous New Zealand Post Book Awards,

2013).

“This is, I suppose, stretching our under-

standing of what New Zealand literature

is and it’s about the writers, really, not the

subject matter or the settings.

“I’m sure if Hilary Mantel moved to

New Zealand, became a permanent resi-

dent and decided to live here, we wouldn’t

mind selling her around the world as a

New Zealand writer.”

The shortlists, she says, in the four

categories are up to judges, “who are

individuals, with their own tastes and

prejudices ... and they are thinking about

excellence. But what one person thinks

is excellent will differ quite widely from

another person.”

The judges for the fiction category are

former Listener Books & Culture editor

Mark Broatch, short story and non-fiction

writer Nic Low and independent book-

seller Chris Baskett.

Says Broatch of the shortlist: “Forced to

winnow a great longlist to four, the judges

found that these books stood above the

others – for their storytelling brio, their

exploration of salient

ideas and their dedi-

cation to language as

a salve and seasoning

for the mind, the

marrow, the spirit.”

As well as the

Shuker and the Vann

novels, the fiction

shortlist includes

Auē, the acclaimed

debut novel set in a world of gangs and

domestic violence by West Coaster Becky

Manawatu, and Pearly Gates, the tale of a

small-town South Island mayor by veteran

Owen Marshall.

Elsewhere, the general non-fiction

award pits memoirs by musician Shayne

Carter (Dead People I Have Known) and

Sarah Myles (Towards the Mountain: A Story

of Grief and Hope Forty Years on from Erebus)

against Paula Green’s epic history of New

Zealand women’s poetry, Wild Honey, and

Sarah Gaitanos’ scholarly study of the life

of a lawyer and social justice advocate,

Shirley Smith: An Examined Life.

Setting autobiographical works against

historic ones has already generated

calls for a separate category for creative

non-fiction. But since recent category

winners have been creative memoirs,

Morris says the debate should perhaps be

whether works of history deserve separate

consideration.

“I would think the historians should be

clamouring for their own category.”

Morris says she was surprised by the

absence of O’Malley’s The New Zealand

JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

Pearly Gates by Owen Marshall (Vintage,

Penguin Random House)

A Mistake by Carl Shuker (Victoria Univer-

sity Press)

Halibut on the Moon by David Vann (Text

Publishing)

MARY AND PETER BIGGS AWARDS FOR

POETRY

Moth Hour by Anne Kennedy (Auckland

University Press)

How to Live by Helen Rickerby (Auckland

University Press)

Lay Studies by Steven Toussaint (Victoria

University Press)

How I Get Ready by Ashleigh Young (Vic-

toria University Press)

ILLUSTRATED NONFICTION AWARD

Crafting Aotearoa: A Cultural History of

Making in New Zealand and the Wider

Moana Oceania edited by Karl Chitham,

Kolokesa U Māhina-Tuai, Damian Skinner

(Te Papa Press)

Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance,

Persistence and Defiance edited by Steph-

anie Gibson, Matariki Williams, Puawai

Cairns (Te Papa Press)

We Are Here: An Atlas of Aotearoa by Chris

McDowall and Tim Denee (Massey

University Press)

McCahon Country by Justin Paton (Pen-

guin Random House)

GENERAL NONFICTION AWARD

Dead People I Have Known by Shayne

Carter (Victoria University Press)

Shirley Smith: An Examined Life by Sarah

Gaitanos (Victoria University Press)

Wild Honey: Reading New Zealand Women’s

Poetry by Paula Green (Massey University

Press)

Towards the Mountain: A Story of Grief and

Hope Forty Years on from Erebus by Sarah

Myles (Allen & Unwin)

Wars in the shortlist. “With the New Zea-

land Wars going to be taught in schools,

this book is going to be a very important

textbook and sourcebook. But not every-

thing can get the awards it deserves.” l

The awards are announced on May 12 during

the 2020 Auckland Writers Festival

The 2020 shortlist

“I would like to think its

publication was part of

the wider movement

... So I will take that

over an award any

day of the week.”