The former prime minister's memoir, A Different Kind of Power, has made the shortlist of four books in the General Non-Fiction category of the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. While over in the Fiction category, the internationally acclaimed Catherine Chidgey is up for New Zealand's richest writing award of $65,000.
Dame Jacinda Ardern is back in the news, less than a week since the announcement that she and husband Clarke Gayford would now be making Australia their home.
Ardern’s memoir A Different Kind of Power is one of four finalists announced in the General Non-Fiction category. All four are "highly readable works that give honest impressions of this country and its people," according to the category's convenor of judges Philip Matthews.
“The final four were elevated by artful writing and personal reflections that also offered profound insights," said Matthews. "Each came as a surprise, even to those who thought they knew the story."
Last month Ardern's memoir also won a major prize at the Westminster Book Awards in London, taking out Best Political Book by a Non-Parliamentarian at a ceremony held at the Houses of Parliament in London.
Ardern's fellow contenders in the Okham's General Non-Fiction category incude The Hollows Boys: A Story of Three Brothers & the Fiordland Deer Recovery Era, by Peta Carey; This Compulsion in Us, an essay collection by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā); and Naomi Arnold’s Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa.
When Northbound was published last year, Arnold wrote further about the lonely experience of walking the length of New Zealand for 1News.
The four General Non-Fiction finalists are joined on the shortlist by a further 12 writers, across the genres of fiction, poetry, history, botany, art and te ao Māori. These 16 finalists were selected by panels of specialist judges from a longlist of 44 books across four categories: fiction, poetry, illustrated non-fiction and general non-fiction.
Fiction delivers richest prize of $65,000
While this year's media focus might be on the General Non-Fiction category, it's by no means the most keenly contested category in the awards.
The winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction takes home $65,000, Aotearoa's richest writing prize.
Internationally acclaimed New Zealand writer Catherine Chidgey is up for that award with The Book of Guilt, a suspenseful story of triplet boys and government experimentation set in what its publisher calls a "sinisterly skewed version of England in 1979".
A triple winner?
Chidgey has won the award twice before – the only author to have done so – for The Wish Child in 2017 and The Axeman’s Carnival in 2023.
Other contenders for the lucrative prize are Ingrid Horrocks with All Her Lives; Laura Vincent (Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāpuhi) with Hoods Landing; and Sam Mahon with How to Paint a Nude.
'You laugh, you shudder'
The awards’ fiction category convenor of judges, Craig Cliff, says these four books indicate the breadth and brio of fiction being produced in Aotearoa today.
“You laugh, you shudder, you are pulled along by character and voice and plot. Set in different time periods and across the globe, these four authors speak directly to the contemporary concerns of New Zealanders. How free are we really? How much have attitudes to gender and sexuality actually changed? What might be killing us and what sustains us?” he says.
As in previous years, the fiction panel will be joined by an overseas judge. This year that judge is Leslie Hurtig, the artistic director of the Vancouver Writers Fest.
The other two categories in the awards are Poetry and Illustrated-Non-Fiction. Aside from Fiction, each of the other three main category winners will receive $12,000. There's also a general prize for Best First Book and the winner of that will be awarded $3000.
Nicola Legat, spokesperson for the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa, says this year’s shortlisted books are fresh, reflective, and pack a punch.
“It’s a very exciting finalist list – 16 titles that readers of any genre will enjoy. They have been beautifully crafted by their authors and produced with great care by their publishers.”
All of the winners will be announced at a public ceremony on May 13, during the Auckland Writers Festival.
The 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlisted titles:
*represents debut authors
Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Hoods Landing by Laura Vincent (Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāpuhi) (Āporo Press)
How to Paint a Nude by Sam Mahon (Ugly Hill Press)
The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
Black Sugarcane by Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) (Te Herenga Waka University Press)*
No Good by Sophie van Waardenberg (Auckland University Press)*
Sick Power Trip by Erik Kennedy (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Terrier, Worrier: A Poem in Five Parts by Anna Jackson (Auckland University Press)
BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and Across the British Empire by Charlotte Macdonald (Bridget Williams Books)
He Puāwai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers by Philip Garnock-Jones (Auckland University Press)*
Mark Adams: A Survey – He Kohinga Whakaahua by Sarah Farrar (Massey University Press and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki)
Mr Ward's Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street by Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press)
General Non-Fiction Award
A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, Penguin Random House)*
Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa by Naomi Arnold (HarperCollins Aotearoa New Zealand)
The Hollows Boys: A Story of Three Brothers & the Fiordland Deer Recovery Era by Peta Carey (Potton & Burton)
This Compulsion in Us by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
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