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Chapter 1: What are the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and their significance?
New Zealand Book Awards.
As our esteemed principal sponsor Mark from Occam said, books are crucial.
Hi, I'm Amanda Gillies and today on The Detail, the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The winners will be announced next Wednesday night, but today I sit down with Newsroom's Reading Room editor and author of 14 books, including one on the Ockham longlist, Steve Brawnius. We chat about the importance of the awards, the
prizes, the controversies and of course the finalists including Dame Jacinda Ardern and whether she'll turn up.
The Occam New Zealand National Book Awards are the big event of the year in New Zealand literature and this year is going to have a kind of a cliffhanger aspect to it in particular because of the involvement of Jacinda Ardern and her memoir A Different Kind of Power. You know, it's a cliche to say, but equally true, she is this divisive figure. Not only lunatics hate her.
Some rational people with intelligent notions of the economy in particular do not like her. So yeah, such a high-profile person, such a world figure. And here she is, she's got a book in the dear old Occam New Zealand National Book Awards.
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Chapter 2: Why is Dame Jacinda Ardern notably absent from the Ockham Awards?
She is not your normal, average, gifted, unknown New Zealand author. This is somebody mega. And here she is competing with Naomi, Tina and Peta for this award. You should all take note of that and have a look at how it's going to go down.
Do you reckon she'll be here for it? Will she be sitting in the crowd on Wednesday night?
I assume that she would. However, in the Reading Room newsletter, which went out this morning, I exclusively reveal that Dame Jacinda will not be attending the awards, which I find very surprising. I have to say it's disappointing. Everyone else will be there.
Why not? What's her excuse?
Chapter 3: What controversies surround the finalists of the Ockham Awards?
She had a prior commitment. I questioned that and the word came back from official channels. that before she learned she was on the shortlist, she had booked an event in Australia tied in with her upcoming book that she has written, a guide for teenagers. That book, by the way, is not published in Australia until the first week of June, so that's three weeks away.
Do we think that's an excuse?
Oh, you know, I'm extremely reluctant to be one of those generally hideous troop of people who are critical of Jacinda Ardern. I was very friendly with her when she was a prime minister and knew her a long time before that. And I always really rated her. I liked her a great deal. I thought she was very funny. I really like her book. I'm not a hater.
Chapter 4: How do the Ockham Awards impact authors and their books?
No way. But yeah, I am disappointed in this. She won't be there. It's disappointing. It may constitute a snub. You look surprised.
I am. I thought this would have been one that could have brought her home, to be honest. I thought this could have been the one that would have got her back with her people, something she was so very proud of.
For the record, Amanda is looking very surprised when I sit with her in the studio. Well, you know, I did think, or speculate, I guess, that, you know... Maybe she could do without the usual welcoming committee of haters.
Chapter 5: What criteria do judges consider when selecting winners at the Ockham Awards?
However, she's back in Auckland next weekend as a guest at the Auckland Writers' Festival. So, what, four or five days after the Auckland Awards, she is coming here in a widely publicised and advertised event. And presumably, you know, she'll be greeted by some or however many lunatics.
So that doesn't necessarily follow that that would be, you know, the reason why she didn't want to come to the Occam.
I have a confession to make. That was actually the end of our interview, which I figured I could do because I know some people do skip to the back of the book first. I actually began the chat by asking Steve just how big a deal are the Occam Awards?
Within the book trade, it doesn't get bigger than this. This is the premier event of the year. It's the red-letter date of the calendar. This is the one that has the hype, the interest, even a touch of glamour. It goes live at the Aotea Centre in
Chapter 6: How do readers perceive the shortlisted books this year?
in Auckland for 10 years now. It's been sponsored pretty generously, actually, by Occam New Zealand, and it recognises the best of the best in basically four categories, fiction, non-fiction, illustrated, non-fiction, and poetry. And there's good money to be had. The winner of the fiction prize pockets $65,000 in hard cash.
Ooh!
And the other winners get $12,000, which is considerably less, but not a bad day at the office.
Is it a game changer, though, for those who win? I mean, what does it mean in terms of sale, in terms of celebrity and reputation? What does it mean that way?
It is a huge game changer. To write a book, it's such a long, hard, lonely and doubtful kind of project. and you wonder why you do it.
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Chapter 7: What is the controversy regarding the involvement of overseas judges?
But if you are gifted and lucky enough, and it's that combination, I think, which is at work, to win an award at the Occams, then it's great confirmation that this project was worthwhile, that it has been recognised. It can lead to a huge boost in sales, but that's going to be dependent on the title.
I think we saw that fairly significantly last year when Damien Wilkins won the Fiction Prize for Delirious. It hadn't really been a bestseller up until then. And after then, people cottoned on that this was actually a really, really good book. And it truly is. I named it the best novel of that year at Reading Room at the end of 2024.
And yeah, the Occam machine boosted its appeal and put the word out. So that was really great. And I remember you remarked to me during last year after the award that it was a novelty and a nice thing to be regarded as a best-selling author. And that was thanks to, you know, the Occam Award. So that changes it.
Chapter 8: What are the final thoughts on the impact of the Ockham Awards on New Zealand literature?
That's a big game-changer. It's the one night, you know, you can get together with publishers, other authors, everyone in the trade, booksellers, designers and so forth, and go, well, you know, didn't we do well? There's some really great stuff here. And there is, year after year, and 2026 is no exception. In some ways, some of the choices are, well, they're not perverse or anything.
or not even willful. But there are some surprising things there. At the same time, you would absolutely expect, say, in the fiction category, for The Book of Guilt by Catherine Trudgy to be in there.
She's going to be, is it, up for her fourth award if she wins? Is that right? Something she's been an incredible winner.
She has, I believe, has won it
Maybe it could be her third, actually.
It's third or fourth. She has won the Occam twice, and she may have won the Fiction Award when it had a previous sponsor. But, you know, you don't get bigger in the fiction game than Catherine Chidji. It was the biggest selling novel of the year. It's this hugely accomplished, technically brilliant novel. novel with a real story.
You know, we live in a sort of an age of, we want a narrative, we want a yarn, and she provides. It's a sort of an ingenious story about genetically engineered or chemically engineered children, and they're kind of mutants, and they learn the truth about their existence in this very far-fetched and yet extremely credible and believable So you would expect that to be there.
You would totally expect a different kind of power, a memoir by a little-known politician called Jacinda Ardern, to be in the running for the non-fiction prize. It was the biggest-selling book of any kind in New Zealand last year.
Can I jump in there and ask, did Jacinda Ardern, Dame Jacinda Ardern, steal your spot in the non-fiction finalist award? Be honest.
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