Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for 2022 were announced at a ceremony held in Auckland last week and I was thrilled to win the General Non-Fiction category for Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa, published in 2021 and the third instalment in a trilogy on the New Zealand Wars that began with The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato, 1800-2000 in 2016 and was followed by The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa in 2019 - all published by Bridget Williams Books.


Judges Nicholas Reid, Aaron Smale and Leilani Tamu had this to say about Voices from the New Zealand Wars:

Vincent O’Malley’s book meets all the criteria for a great work of non-fiction. It is the fruit of close historical research and accessible to a wide readership. It tells us of the past but is relevant to the present when public debate feeds New Zealanders’ hunger to know how our country was formed. It is nuanced in its balance of both Māori and Pakeha voices and it respects the attitudes and assumptions of people who lived in an era different from our own. In bringing together these voices, O’Malley creates a coherent history of the New Zealand Wars, gives greater attention to wahine than earlier historians have, and deals carefully with contested events. The excellent book production is a credit to the publishers.

 Many congratulations to the other category winners, and to all the finalists, for their excellent works.

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