New Zealand Book Awards Trust · award year

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024

The 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards went to Ruin and Other Stories by Emma Hislop (Best First Book: Fiction), There’s a Cure for This: A Memoir by Emma Wehipeihana (Best First Book: General Non-Fiction) and Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History by Ryan Bodman (Best First Book: Illustrated Non-Fiction), with winners in 5 more categories. 20 books were finalists and 48 books made the longlist across 8 categories.

Winners

Best First Book: Fiction

  1. Ruin and Other Storiessource (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: General Non-Fiction

  1. There’s a Cure for This: A Memoirsource (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: Illustrated Non-Fiction

  1. Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s Historysource (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: Poetry

  1. At the Point of Seeingsource (opens in a new tab)

Fiction

  1. Lionesssource (opens in a new tab)

General Non-Fiction

  1. An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essayssource (opens in a new tab)

Illustrated Non-Fiction

  1. Don Binney: Flight Pathsource (opens in a new tab)

Poetry

  1. Chinese Fishsource (opens in a new tab)

Finalists

Fiction

  1. A Better Placesource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Auditionsource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Birnam Woodsource (opens in a new tab)

General Non-Fiction

  1. Laughing at the Dark: A Memoirsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Wakasource (opens in a new tab)
  3. There’s a Cure for This: A Memoirsource (opens in a new tab)

Illustrated Non-Fiction

  1. Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager's Field Guidesource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hillssource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s Historysource (opens in a new tab)

Poetry

  1. At the Point of Seeingsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Root Leaf Flower Fruitsource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Taliasource (opens in a new tab)

Longlist

Fiction

  1. Backwaterssource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Bird Lifesource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Petsource (opens in a new tab)
  4. Ruin and Other Storiessource (opens in a new tab)
  5. Signs of Lifesource (opens in a new tab)
  6. Turncoatsource (opens in a new tab)

General Non-Fiction

  1. Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealandsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Commune: Chasing a Utopian Dream in Aotearoasource (opens in a new tab)
  3. End Timessource (opens in a new tab)
  4. Ora: Healing Ourselvessource (opens in a new tab)
  5. Snorkelling the Abyss: One Woman, Striving to Survive, Fighting for Survivorssource (opens in a new tab)
  6. Soundings: Diving for Stories in the Beckoning Seasource (opens in a new tab)
  7. Takahē: Bird of Dreamssource (opens in a new tab)
  8. The Drinking Gamesource (opens in a new tab)
  9. The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoasource (opens in a new tab)
  10. The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati Te Ito and His Kaingārara Movementsource (opens in a new tab)

Illustrated Non-Fiction

  1. Flora: Celebrating our Botanical Worldsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Ngā Kaihanga Uku: Māori Clay Artistssource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Our Land in Colour: A History of Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1960source (opens in a new tab)
  4. Pacific Arts Aotearoasource (opens in a new tab)
  5. Sure to Rise: The Edmonds Storysource (opens in a new tab)
  6. Through Shaded Glass: Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1960source (opens in a new tab)

Poetry

  1. Big Fat Brown Bitchsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Bitersource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Calamities!source (opens in a new tab)
  4. Say I Do This: Poems 2018–2022source (opens in a new tab)
  5. The Artistsource (opens in a new tab)
  6. When I Reach for Your Pulsesource (opens in a new tab)

About the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

The New Zealand Book Awards ran as the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (2006-2009), the New Zealand Post Book Awards (2010-2014) and the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards (2016-2025). No awards were held in 2015. Year is the ceremony year. Winners and finalists for 2006-2014 come from Christchurch City Libraries award pages (fallback; the official site lists winners only for those years). 2016-2017 longlists and finalists come from the official longlist and finalist news releases, and winners from the official past-winners page. 2018-2025 come from the official per-year winners, shortlist and longlist pages. Categories keep stable names across sponsor renames: the Acorn and Jann Medlicott Acorn prizes are Fiction, the Mary and Peter Biggs Award is Poetry, the Royal Society and later General Non-Fiction Award is General Non-Fiction, and the Booksellers and BookHub awards are Illustrated Non-Fiction. The Montana-era Illustrative category is mapped to Illustrated Non-Fiction. Its other non-fiction categories (Biography, History, Environment, Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture, Reference & Anthology) stay as their own categories. From 2010 non-fiction was split into General and Illustrated. Best first book awards are their own categories: Hubert Church (Best First Book: Fiction), Jessie Mackay (Best First Book: Poetry), E.H. McCormick (Best First Book: Non-Fiction until 2014, then Best First Book: General Non-Fiction) and Judith Binney (Best First Book: Illustrated Non-Fiction, from 2016). Ockham best first book awards are drawn from the longlist and have no published shortlist, so only winners appear. Levels: Winner; Honor for the Montana fiction runners-up; Finalist for shortlisted books; Longlist for longlisted books not shortlisted (Ockham only). Excluded: the Montana Medals and Book of the Year (they duplicate a category winner), People's and Readers' Choice and Booksellers' Choice (public or trade votes), the Maori Language Award, the reviewer awards, and the separate children's and young adult awards, which are a different program. Iwi affiliations in brackets are dropped from author names. Title spellings follow the books where the source has typos.

Organization: New Zealand Book Awards Trust. Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)

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