
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo

The Testaments
by Margaret Atwood
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo
The Testaments
by Margaret Atwood
The Bomb, Sacha Cotter, illustrated by Josh Morgan
Huia Publishers
Winner of the Picture Book Award 2019 and the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award 2019
George Saunders (Bloomsbury Publishing)
On 22 February 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln is laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, his father Abraham arrives at the cemetery, alone, under cover of darkness.
Over the course of that evening, Abraham Lincoln paces the graveyard unsettled by the death of his beloved boy, and by the grim shadow of a war that feels as though it is without end. Meanwhile, Willie is trapped in a state of limbo between the dead and the living – drawn to his father with whom he can no longer communicate, existing in a ghostly world populated by the recently passed and the long dead.
Unfolding in the graveyard over a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a thrilling exploration of death, grief and the deeper meaning and possibilities of life.
The full list of winners of the 2017 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults is:
Snark Being a true history of the expedition that discovered the Snark and the Jabberwock . . . and its tragic aftermath illustrated and written (after Lewis Carroll)
by David Elliot
Otago University Press
That’s Not a Hippopotamus! by Juliette MacIver and illustrated
by Sarah Davis
Gecko Press
My New Zealand Story: Bastion Point
by Tania Roxborogh
Scholastic New Zealand
The Severed Land
by Maurice Gee
Penguin Random House (Penguin)
The Discombobulated Life of Summer Rain
by Julie Lamb
Mākaro Press (Submarine)
More information about the winners, the shortlist and the judges can be found at New Zealand Book Awards Trust.
Image via New Zealand Book Awards Trust
The Sellout
by Paul Beatty
A biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.
Born in the “agrarian ghetto” of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: “I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that’ve been there since ’68 quake.” Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father’s pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family’s financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that’s left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town’s most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
Coming Rain
by Stephen Daisley
A universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment, the prose is masterful, simple and moving. The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness. The author’s portrayal of hard physical tasks in conjunction with the mental effort required to carry on in the face of everyday obstacles and heartbreak is a thing of beauty.
“Coming Rain is a universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment. The prose is masterful, simple and moving. The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness. It was a book that all three judges came across joyfully and read with the ease of those who know they’re in the hands of a confident writer.” Jill Rawnsley, convenor of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Fiction category
FICTION
THE ACORN FOUNDATION LITERARY AWARD
Coming Rain
Stephen Daisley
Text Publishing
ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History
Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris
Bridget Williams Books
GENERAL NON-FICTION
Māori Boy: A Memoir of Childhood
Witi Ihimaera
Vintage
The winners of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults are as follows:
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Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Young Adult Book Award Singing Home the Whale |
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Picture Book Award
Jim’s Letters |
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Junior Fiction Award
Monkey Boy |
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Non-fiction Award
Mōtītī Blue and the Oil Spill |
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Best First Book
Māori Art for Kids |
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Maori Language Award
Ngā Ki |
Children’s Choice Award Winners
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Picture Book
The Anzac Puppy |
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Junior Fiction
The Island of Lost Horses |
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Non-Fiction
The Letterbox Cat & other poems |
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Young Adult Fiction
Night Vision |
Marsden Books congratulates all the winners at the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards announced 24 August, 2014.
New Zealand Post Book of the Year and General Non-fiction
Peter McLeavey: The life and times of a New Zealand art dealer by Jill Trevelyan, published by Te Papa Press.
Fiction and People’s Choice
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press)
Poetry
Us, then by Vincent O’Sullivan (Victoria University Press)
Illustrated Non-fiction
Coast: A New Zealand journey by Bruce Ansley & Jane Ussher (Random House NZ (Godwit))
Nielsen Booksellers’ Choice
Molesworth: Stories from New Zealand’s largest high country station by Harry Broad and Rob Suisted (Craig Potton Publishing)
NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book award for Fiction
Tough by Amy Head (Victoria University Press)
NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book award for Poetry
Horse with Hat by Marty Smith (Victoria University Press)
NZSA E. H. McCormick Best First Book for Non-fiction
Tragedy at Pike River Mine by Rebecca Macfie (Awa Press)