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Members of the Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington community won six of the eight annual awards at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards last night.
Five of the winners are alumni of the University’s renowned International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) Creative Writing Master’s programme, while the sixth is an emeritus professor in the University’s English programme.
Three of the winning books were published by Victoria University Press (VUP).
“To have five winning graduates from the International Institute of Modern Letters indicates that our reputation as the best place to learn creative writing in Aotearoa New Zealand is well earned. It is truly outstanding to see our alumni leading in their chosen field,” says Professor Sarah Leggott, Dean of the University’s Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Whanganui author Airini Beautrais wins major prize at Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
12 May, 2021 08:45 AM
3 minutes to read
Beautrais Bug Week is the first short story collection to win the major prize in over a decade and only the second in the awards 53-year history. Photo / Lewis Gardner
Beautrais Bug Week is the first short story collection to win the major prize in over a decade and only the second in the awards 53-year history. Photo / Lewis Gardner
Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais has won New Zealand s biggest writing prize.
Beautrais was announced the winner of the $57,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in Auckland on Wednesday night.
Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais has won the premier award at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her book
Bug Week - it s her first book of fiction and it s also the first time the category has been won by a collection of short stories in more than a decade.
Airini Beautrais.
Photo: Tracy Grant
Beautrais won the $57,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction with a book that convenor of judges Kiran Dass described as a knockout from start to finish. Casting a devastating and witty eye on humanity at its most fallible and wonky, this is a tightly-wound and remarkably assured collection. Atmospheric and refined, these stories evoke a strong sense of quiet unease, slow burning rage and the absurdly comic, Dass said.