A poem by Ockham Award-winning novelist Becky Manawatu. Crumbs between stones Tēnā koe XXXX I am writing to ask you some questions regarding a family harm incident which police responded to on Friday night. What time did the woman make the initial call? What time did police arrive at the scene? Was anyone arrested? If … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) Winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the most prestigious prize … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) Newly anointed winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. The judges were … Read more
Mary McCallum found out last night that Becky Manawatu’s novel Auē, published by her tiny press, had won the richest prize in New Zealand literature. Three of the best nights of my life have been at this country’s national book awards. The first time was 2008 when my novel The Blue, published by Penguin, was … Read more
Last night Becky Manawatu’s Auē won best first novel at the Ockham NZ Book Awards, which she knew about in advance – and the country’s biggest prize for fiction, the $55,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize, which she didn’t. So how’s today treating her? When I woke up this morning (if I can call it waking … Read more
An essay-review of Becky Manawatu’s novel Auē, one of four finalists for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the most prestigious of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. There are ghosts. They are real. You are born with them. You will die with them. They are your inheritance and will be your legacy. Cest … Read more
Ladies and gentlemen we have a horse race. Below, books editor Catherine Woulfe offers up odds on the fiction contenders. But first, here’s the complete list of finalists for the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. THE JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION Auē, by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press) Pearly Gates, by Owen Marshall (Vintage, … Read more
Auē author Becky Manawatu picks holes in her mahi and then starts to sew them up again, in this essay about colonialism and tikanga and the smoke in the sky. A wise woman once tweeted to me that “explaining is losing”, yet here I am. Explaining. Because when the world is on fire, we’re losing … Read more
Presenting: the third installment in our best-of-the-year series, put together by the Spinoff and various benevolent elves. This time it’s fiction. These are the books that moved us, that we walk around with in our heads, and that we are giving for Christmas, smug with the certainty that they’re absolutely kick-ass. See also: The 10 … Read more
Becky Manawatu’s first novel is published by Mākaro Press and it’s a blinder. Dedicated to her cousin Glen Bo Duggan, who was 10 when he was killed by his mother’s boyfriend, it’s a story about kids and gangs and curdled masculinity. About serendipity, and taniwha, and resilience. It begins with Taukiri dropping his little brother … Read more