And then there were 16.
The finalists for the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for fiction - Eleanor Catton for Birnam Wood, Emily Perkins for Lioness, Stephen Daisley for A Better Place and Pip Adam for Audition - have all previously won the award or its predecessor.
Daisley took it out in 2016 and Adam in 2018, Catton won the NZ Post fiction award in 2014, Emily Perkins the Montana fiction award in 2009. The cull this year must have been particularly knotty, leaving out Ockham and Booker longlister Anna Smaill, last year’s winner Catherine Chidgey, Emma Hislop, Amy Head and the other male in the category, Tihema Baker.
Here’s a sample of what Listener reviewers said about the shortlisted four:
Audition: “strange and wonderful.”
A Better Place: “Makes us feel the stories.”
Birnam Wood: “A rollicking thriller … a skillfully plotted, slickly executed Nerd’s Dream.”
Lioness: “Discomfiting and wholly enjoyable at once.”
Our prediction, made here when the longlist was announced, still stands: Birnam Wood will take out the fiction prize with Hislop’s Ruin and Other Stories (“a deftly crafted and intriguing collection” to take out best debut.
The illustrated non-fiction category shortlist comprises Gregory O’Brien’s Don Binney, Liv Sisson’s Fungi of Aotearoa, Marilynn Webb, by Lauren Gutsell et al, and Rugby League in New Zealand by Ryan Bodman.
Once again, we’re standing with the prediction we made in January: Don Binney to win, Fungi of Aotearoa to take out best debut.
And we’re confident about general non-fiction, too: Damon Salesa’s An Indigenous Ocean to win with Emma Espiner’s There’s A Cure for This for debut. Laughing at the Dark, by Barbara Else and Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Waka, by Jeff Evans complete the shortlist. However, our suggestion for winner, Jared Davidson’s Blood and Dirt didn’t even make the cut.
In poetry, our prediction of the likely winner was astray. Tusiata Avia’s Big Fat Brown Bitch didn’t make the shortlist, nor did our favourite, Claudia Jardine’s Biter. The poetry shortlist comprises three debuts, including Talia, by Isla Huia, as well as Bill Nelson’s verse novel Root Leaf Flower Fruit. Megan Kitching’s At the Point of Seeing might still take out debut, as predicted, or even overall winner, but she has strong competition for both spots. This comes from Chinese Fish, by Kiwi-Australian Grace Yee, who recently won the poetry category in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards as well as the overall award -- the first poet to do so.
The winners and four Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards recipients will be revealed at a public event on Wednesday, May 15 during the 2024 Auckland Writers Festival. Each of the main category prizewinners other than fiction pockets $12,000. The best first book winners each take home $3000.
THE SHORTLIST:
(*Represents debut authors)
Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
A Better Place, by Stephen Daisley (Text)
Audition, by Pip Adam (THWUP)
Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (THWUP)
Lioness, by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury)
Booksellers Aotearoa NZ Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Don Binney: Flight Path, by Gregory O’Brien (AUP)
Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide, by Liv Sisson (Penguin)*
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills, by Lauren Gutsell et al (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History, by Ryan Bodman (BWB)*
General Non-Fiction Award
An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays, by Damon Salesa (BWB)
Laughing at the Dark: A Memoir, by Barbara Else (Penguin)
Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Waka, by Jeff Evans (MUP)
There’s a Cure for This, by Emma Espiner (Penguin)*
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
At the Point of Seeing, by Megan Kitching (Otago University Press)*
Chinese Fish, by Grace Yee (Giramondo)*
Root Leaf Flower Fruit, by Bill Nelson (THWUP)
Talia, by Isla Huia (Dead Bird Books)*
