November 10, 2020
Karetu dance of delight at PM’s Award
Sir Tīmoti Kāretu’s just-published te reo Māori collection of a lifetime of insights on Māori dance arts has won the non-fiction section of this year’s Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement.
Sir Timoti, from Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Kahungunu, is a leading academic, a translator and author, and a key driver of the revitalisation of te reo.
The poetry prize was won by former poet laureate Jenny Bornholdt for her comprehensive anthology of New Zealand poetry in English, and Tessa Duder took the fiction prize for an illustrated story of how James Cook charted Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, says the annual awards celebrate the value writers bring to Aotearoa.
Each recipient will be awarded $60,000 in recognition of their outstanding contribution to New Zealand literature.
This year rather than the usual Unity Books lunchtime in-store event there will be an online literary panel with the recipients on November 24 facilitated by broadcaster John Campbell.
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