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Auckland writer Dick Scott was amazed by something he saw on television a couple of weeks ago. Scott, the author of two celebrated histories of the peaceful Parihaka resistance movement in Taranaki during the 1880s, was watching news footage of the band Moana and the Moahunters, who were
being interviewed at an orphanage in Vladivostok during their Russian tour.
"And the Russian guy running the orphanage said he had read the Parihaka story," says Scott. "I couldn't believe it."
Scott's work - including The Parihaka Story, written in 1954, and Ask That Mountain, an updated version of the story published in 1975 which has been reprinted eight times, was last night saluted with the presentation of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement, worth $60,000.
Scott received the award for non-fiction, while Banks Peninsula writer Fiona Farrell won the award for fiction and Bill Manhire, of Wellington, for poetry. The awards were presented by Prime Minister Helen Clark at Government House in Wellington.
Scott, 83, said that when he first started to investigate the history of the Government-sanctioned land grab at Parihaka, "It was the 1950s and a totally neglected story".
"I first went there to write the story, and they didn't want to talk to me. There was hardly anybody there anyway. One lady who took me in for a cup of tea said Pakeha wouldn't want to hear about it, it was too sad.
"So most of that first book was based on research in the Turnbull Library and parliamentary papers."
Things had changed by 1975, when Scott was asked to update the story. "They put me up to stay at the meeting house for several days with the old folk and I got a great run from then on."
He recalled that when The Parihaka Story first came out, "no newspapers reviewed it except the New Plymouth daily newspaper, which attacked it through a whole series of articles ... The school libraries in Taranaki banned the book".
But when Ask That Mountain was published in 1975, "the Taranaki paper did a favourable review, and the editor wrote to me and said the book should be compulsory reading in high schools. That was a real turnaround".
The award rounds off a productive year for Farrell, 59, who lives at Otanerito Bay on Banks Peninsula. In this year alone, she has had two highly acclaimed books published, Mr Allbones' Ferrets, a novel, and a collection of poetry.
A fulltime writer since 1991, Farrell says she has "a million different ways I could spend the money."
Manhire, director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University, was not able to attend last night's ceremony.
His award was accepted by his colleague, Victoria University Press publisher Fergus Barrowman.
Manhire is holidaying on the Greek island of Kea on the way to Britain, where he will appear at the Manchester Literature and King's Lynn Poetry Festivals, along with making a recording for the British Poetry Archive, run by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.
"I am totally chuffed about the award," said Manhire sleepily on the phone from Kea, awaken by a call from the Herald.
