2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards - shortlist announced
Dazzling books that ‘address our moment’s most urgent concerns’.
The $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards will be contested by three former winners of the award – Laurence Fearnley, Kirsty Gunn and Damien Wilkins – and Commonwealth Writers' Prize winner Tina Makereti.
The four novelists are joined by a further 12 acclaimed and debut authors of books of memoir, poetry, history, art and te ao Māori on the Ockhams shortlist announced today. These 16 finalists were selected from a longlist of 43 books by panels of specialist judges across four categories: fiction, poetry, illustrated non-fiction, and general non-fiction.
Fearnley, who won the fiction prize in 2011 for The Hut Builder, is a finalist for At the Grand Glacier Hotel; Gunn, whose novel The Big Music was judged Book of the Year in 2013, is shortlisted for the short story collection Pretty Ugly; Wilkins, who won the fiction award for The Miserables in 1994 and was runner-up in 2001 and 2007 is a finalist with Delirious; and Makereti, who won the 2016 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize, is a finalist for The Mires.
Thom Conroy, convenor of judges for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, says this year’s fiction shortlist features dazzling works that address our moment’s most urgent concerns: climate change, race relations, mobility, sexism, immigration and ageing.
“Whether set in the Scottish Highlands, at the Fox Glacier, or on the Kāpiti Coast, each of these finalists evoked a visceral and often lyrical sense of place,” he says.
From here the fiction panel will move to judging the winner, and will be joined in that task by an international judge, the esteemed literary festival chair, books editor, broadcaster and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Georgina Godwin.
The finalists in the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry are the acclaimed poet, essayist and novelist C.K. Stead (In the Half Light of a Dying Day), who is 92 years old; award-winning poet and novelist Emma Neale (Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit); literary polymath Robert Sullivan (Hopurangi - Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka); and poet and song writer Richard von Sturmer (Slender Volumes).
David Eggleton, convenor of judges for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, says that endeavouring to select the best vintage from this year’s crop was a very tough task.
“We sought to argue, debate and rationalise — and eventually harmonise — our choices; pitting militant language poets against equally militant identity poets, spiritual poets, polemical poets, experimental poets and careful traditionalists in pursuit of acknowledging books of literary excellence at the highest level,” he says.
In the running for the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction are four senior curators at our national museum, Te Papa: Athol McCredie (Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer); and Matiu Baker, Katie Cooper, Rebecca Rice and museum research associate Michael Fitgerald (Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa). They are up against former Book of the Year winner Jill Trevelyan and her co-authors Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson (Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist); and eminent academics and authors Deirdre Brown, Ngarino Ellis and the late Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art).
Chris Szekely, convenor of judges for the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction, says history and art dominated the field in this category, with the panel saluting these books’ erudite and well-researched narratives and information-rich, educative texts.
“As to be expected, illustrations were high-calibre, well-matched with text, and all marvellously presented through outstanding design,” he says.
The 2025 shortlist’s two debut authors are both finalists in this year’s General Non-Fiction category: Flora Feltham (Bad Archive) and Una Cruickshank (The Chthonic Cycle). Esteemed academics Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery) and Richard Shaw (The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation) join them as finalists in this category.
Holly Walker, convenor of judges for the General Non-Fiction category, says memoir and creative non-fiction were abundantly represented this year.
“The four shortlisted titles span a wide range of subject matter – from the collective amnesia of settler colonialism to the specifics of fabric weaving, from a personal history of feminist and Māori activism to the scientific history of ambergris – but they all share something in common: the bravery to confront big, scary, existential questions, and to report back on the experience in ways that make meaning for readers,” she says.
Nicola Legat, spokesperson for the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa, says that this year’s shortlist is rich with page-turning, reflective and incisive books.
“Powerful prose and poetry, sumptuously illustrated books and gut-punching memoirs are vying with work by outstanding first-time authors on this year’s finalist list. It is a broad and fascinating collection of books,” she says.
2025 marks the tenth year of principal sponsor Ockham Residential’s relationship with the New Zealand Book Awards.
Ms Legat says it is deeply heartening to work alongside the team at Ockham Residential.
“We are incredibly fortunate to have a partner who believes as strongly as we do that New Zealand writers and their books make important contributions to society.
“We salute Ockham Residential’s generous support, just as we congratulate this year’s 16 finalists. Their books reflect the vibrancy, relevance and depth of New Zealand publishing today,” she says.
The 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted titles are:
*represents debut authors
Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn (Otago University Press)
The Mires by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) (Ultimo Press)
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
Hopurangi - Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka by Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu)
(Auckland University Press)
In the Half Light of a Dying Day by C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press)
Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit by Emma Neale (Otago University Press)
Slender Volumes by Richard von Sturmer (Spoor Books)
BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson (Massey University Press)
Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer by Athol McCredie (Te Papa Press)
Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa by Matiu Baker (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue), Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald and Rebecca Rice (Te Papa Press)
Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art by Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) and Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī) (Auckland University Press)
General Non-Fiction Award
Bad Archive by Flora Feltham (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) (HarperCollins Publishers Aotearoa New Zealand)
The Chthonic Cycle by Una Cruickshank (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press)
The 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards’ winners, including the four Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards recipients, will be announced at a public ceremony on 14 May during the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival.
The winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction will receive $65,000 and each of the three other main category winners will receive $12,000. Each of the Best First Book winners, for fiction, poetry, general non-fiction and illustrated non-fiction, will be awarded $3000.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are supported by Ockham Residential, Creative New Zealand, the late Jann Medlicott and the Acorn Foundation, Mary and Peter Biggs CNZM, BookHub presented by Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand, The Mātātuhi Foundation, and the Auckland Writers Festival.