$2000 each for prize-winning authors

Press, 15 July 1983, Page 3

$2000 each for prize-winning authors

PA Wellington “Other Halves,” by Sue McCauley, of Northland, was last night named winner of the fiction section of the 1983 New Zealand Book Awards, and “Cork of War” by Ray Grover of Wellington won the nonfiction category. Both authors won $2OOO. The judges gave half of the $2OOO poetry prize to Dunedin’s Cilla McQueen for “Homing In,” and the other half to Professor Allen Curnow of Auckland, the present Katherine Mansfield Fellow, for “You Will Know When You Get There.” The $2OOO award for book production was shared among four works with “Maui Development Environmental Study: Report on Phase 2,” by Professor A. C. Kibblewhite and others at Auckland University taking the main honours and $lOOO. Three photographers shared the other $lOOO. They were Eric Taylor of Auckland for “This Land of Light,” with poems by the late James K. Baxter; Geoff Moon of Auckland, for “New Zealand’s Birds,” text by Ronald Lockley; and Brian Enting of Upper Hutt, for “The Ancient Islands,” text

by Les Molloy. The awards, announced at a ceremony in Lower Hutt by the Minister for the Arts, Mr Highet, are sponsored by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council and the Literary Fund. The fiction judges, David Hill (Inglewood) and Gabrielle Day (Hamilton), said that they were in complete agreement that Mrs McCauley’s book, the story of a relationship between an unemployed Maori youth, aged 18, and a married, middle class pakeha woman, aged 34, was the best. Both non-fiction judges, Dr Michael King (Wellington) and Dale AshendenWilliams (Wellington) were unanimous too on their selection of “Cork of War.” The poetry judges, Michael Harlow (Christchurch) and Harry Ricketts (Wellington) were unable to split the winning poetry entries and agreed on a shared prize.

The book production judges, Professor Donald McKenzie (Wellington) and Janet Paul (Wellington) agreed on placing the Maui report first and giving it the major prize and awarding three other equal prizes to the photographers.