For the first time in its 21-year history, all three Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement have been presented to women.
Lee Murray, once dubbed New Zealand’s Stephen King, took home the fiction award for her speculative fiction and horror work. Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, an academic recognised internationally for her contribution to scholarship on indigenous thought, won the non-fiction prize, while Tusiata Avia, an award-winning poet and writer, was chosen for the poetry prize.
“We think of 21 as a being a marker of maturity, and these writers reflect that in our literary scene,” Arts Council Chair Caren Rangi says. “Each of these women is fearless in different ways, through experiment with genre, theory and form.”
But there are other firsts this year, too. Avia is the first Pasifika woman to receive the poetry award; Murray is the first person of Chinese heritage to receive the fiction award and Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) is the first wahine Māori to receive the nonfiction award.
That being so, they didn’t necessarily begin their careers dead set on writing, by choice or otherwise.
Murray was initially a scientist, living seven years in France as New Zealand’s energy adviser to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD). It was a writing class she attended back home that spurred a love of writing and of the horror genre in particular.
“My academic background is research, so I always find it fascinating to follow those rabbit holes,” Murray told the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly earlier this year. “I might see a paper or research article that spurs an idea. I’ll see something and ask, ‘What would be the consequence of this technology or this piece of research?’”
Her novels have since won five international Bram Stoker Awards, four Australian Shadows Awards and 12 Sir Julius Vogel Awards, with the PM’s award now topping the pile.
Conversely, Avia had always wanted to write – and did – but didn’t see herself as a fully-fledged writer until well into adulthood.
“I’d always loved writing and it was what I wanted to do but by the time I turned 15, I’d lived long enough to realise that brown girls like me didn’t become writers, so I put that dream away,” she told the Listener in November.
“It wasn’t until my 30s that I felt I’d done enough to call myself a writer. But it was still a conscious decision and I had to teach myself to do that, too.”
Beyond poetry, Avia is a jack of all trades. She’s written children’s fiction, creative non-fiction, radio documentary and theatre. But she is best-known for her poetry collection The Savage Coloniser Book – a work that won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was staged as a theatre show which continues to play both nationally and internationally.
Her latest book, Big Fat Brown Bitch, was written in direct response to some of the indignation that the Savage Coloniser provoked, particularly among some media and politicians. Avia told the Listener, “In February this year, I did an interview with Stuff about its adaptation as a play for the Auckland Arts Festival. The poem was printed with the article, which is how it came to the attention of [online radio channel The Platform’s] Sean Plunket and Act leader David Seymour ‒ the sorts of people who clearly don’t realise that a poem does many things and can contain symbols, metaphors and layering. Maybe some people only read the words on the page and don’t think further?
“I was called a hate-fuelled racist who wanted to kill white men. Sean Plunket composed a poem to me, all in rhyming doggerel. He also encouraged his followers to complain to the Race Relations Commissioner and the Media Council. Some of the 300 complaints likened the poem to the Christchurch massacre and Act used it to do some race-baiting in the run-up to the election. A flood of hate mail followed, then a threat to my life.”
She describes Big Fat Brown Bitch as her reply to the furore written in the “language” she speaks best, poetry.
Smith has been an activist and writer since the 1970s as part of Ngā Tamatoa, speaking on the importance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and a place in which she “cut her teeth as a communicator”, she told E-Tangata in 2015.
Her 1999 book, Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, is considered a foundational text for Indigenous Studies, having been translated into numerous languages.
Smith has since been widely praised for the book’s significant academic impact. She had thousands on Twitter in 2020 use the hashtag #BecauseofLindaTuhiwaiSmith, where users shared ways in which Smith has impacted them.
18 years ago I was preparing to leave academia because I felt there was no possibility of advancement and then #BecauseOfLindaTuhiwaiSmith who told me to stay and fight and there was a new Māori research 'thing' about to happen and I was needed.
— Prof. Joanna Kidman (@JoannaKidman) September 10, 2020
I'm still here. So is @NgaPaeotM
This year, Smith was made a lifetime international member of the United States National Academy of Sciences while working as a distinguished professor at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi.
Murray, Avia and Smith will each be celebrated for their Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement at an event early in 2024, with details to be confirmed in the new year.
