Seven THWUP books on the 2026 Ockham longlist

We're delighted to have seven books on the longlist for the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Huge congratulations to these writers!

Longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

  • All Her Lives – Ingrid Horrocks
  • Star Gazers – Duncan Sarkies
  • The Book of Guilt – Catherine Chidgey

Longlisted for the General Non-Fiction prize

  • This Compulsion in Us – Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā)

Longlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry

  • Black Sugarcane – Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa'itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu)
  • Giving Birth to My Father – Tusiata Avia
  • Sick Power Trip – Erik Kennedy

We are very proud of these books and thrilled to see them recognised by the judges. These titles showcase the variety of brilliant voices we publish here at THWUP. In prose, we have the fierce intelligence of the stories in All Her Lives, the satire and comedy of Star Gazers, the masterful suspense and worldbuilding in The Book of Guilt, and the urgent and powerful thinking in This Compulsion in Us. In poetry, there’s the engaging and generous voice of Black Sugarcane, the raw grief and profound renewal of Giving Birth to My Father, and the incisive, witty cultural commentary of Sick Power Trip.

It’s especially exciting to see debut poet Nafanua recognised for her first book; this is the start of what promises to be a brilliant writing career.

Our longlisted books.

 

About the Awards

The shortlist will be released on 4 March and winners will be announced at a ceremony on 13 May as part of the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki.

The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are the premier literary honours for books written by New Zealanders. Awards are given for Fiction (the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction), Poetry (the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry), Illustrated Non-Fiction (the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction) and General Non-Fiction. There are also four awards for first-time authors (the Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards) and, at the judges' discretion, Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, a Māori Language Award.

Thanks to the generosity of the late Jann Medlicott, the winner of the fiction prize will receive $65,000. Winners of the other three principal category awards each receive $12,000, as will any recipient of Te Mūrau o te Tuhi. Each of the four Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book prizes is worth $3,000.

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