He mea whakamānawa ngā kaituhituhi Māori e whā ki te pō whakamānawa nui katoa o te ao tuhituhi, ki te Ockham Book Awards.
The ceremony was emceed by Miriama Kamo at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in the Aotea Centre, as part of the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival.
This marks the 57th year of the New Zealand book awards, and the 10th year of its association with principal sponsor Ockham Residential.
General Non-Fiction Award
Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) won the General Non-Fiction Award for her memoir Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery (HarperCollins Publishers Aotearoa New Zealand).
In her acceptance speech, Te Awekōtuku spoke about the Vietnam War and her experiences as a queer, Māori, feminist activist. Te Ao Māori News asked for her thoughts on the current political landscape.
“Kua huri anō te ao hurihuri nei. Kua hoki mai ngā tama toa, tō mātou rōpū ātete — ko mātou rōpū toa — ki te whakawhiriwhiri kōrero, ki te whakawhiriwhiri whakaaro mō te āhuatanga o tēnei wā. Ki ō mātou whakaaro, ko ngā rā e huri mai nei he rā anō,” hei tā Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku.
“Kei te āwangawanga tonu mātou mō ngā uri whakatupō, nā te mea i tautohe mātou i taua wā mō te reo Māori, mō Te Tiriti o Waitangi, mō ngā nanakia i waenganui i a mātou i tērā wā.”
Hubert Church Prize for Fiction
The four Best First Book Awards were sponsored by the Mātātuhi Foundation.
Michelle Rahurahu (Ngāti Rahurahu, Ngāti Tahu–Ngāti Whaoa) received the Hubert Church Prize for Fiction for her book Poorhara (Te Herenga Waka University Press).
She said she didn’t expect to publish a book, let alone receive an award for it, but thanked her ancestors in her speech — saying she is proud to carry their name.
The tragicomedy follows the story of two cousins and is both a family drama and a road trip novel, centred around the theme of poverty.
“Us pōhara’s we’re not passive in our resistance, we’re not passive in the destruction of our dignity and our safety,” Rahurahu said.
“That’s a hard fight because you have so little power and that power can be stripped from you at any time.”
BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Art historians Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) and Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) won the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction for Toi te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art (Auckland University Press).
Toi te Mana is a comprehensive survey of Māori art — from Polynesian voyaging waka to contemporary Māori artists.
The book took 12 years to complete. They dedicated it to Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī), one of the three authors responsible for this magnum opus, who passed away in 2014.
“We’re very proud of the art that has been created in the past and in the present,” said Ellis. “It’s quite tough to be Māori in the environment today and there’s a lot of attacks on our culture, our history and our identity.
“And so we’re really proud of this book to reinforce and tell our tamariki mokopuna that these are our taonga.”
Deidre Brown added, “it’s been a long journey for us... it’s just so wonderful that the book had been recognised and particularly our artists had been recognised that they left.
In their speeches, they acknowledged the recent passing of artist pioneers Robyn Kahukiwa (Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Konohi, Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare) and Fred Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura, Tainui), both of whose work is showcased in Toi te Mana.
