The New Zealand Post Book Awards ceremony was held tonight. The winning book was Peter McLeavey: the life and times of an art dealer, by Jill Trevelyan. This book won the General Non-Fiction prize also, giving Jill Trevelyan a total of $25,000 prize money.
The book is about Peter McLeavey, an art dealer in Wellington. His art gallery sold the works of many well-known artists in New Zealand. The judges said this is a wonderful book which brings the character of Peter McLeavey to life.
The prize for fiction went to Eleanor Catton for her book, The Luminaries ,which won the Booker prize last year. Listen to October 16th 2013 to hear more about the Booker prize.
Vincent O’Sullivan won the Poetry prize for his book Us, then. The prize for Illustrated Non-Fiction went to Bruce Ansley, the writer, and Jane Ussher, the photographer. Their book, Coast: A New Zealand Journey, is about the West Coast of the South island and full of beautiful photographs with interesting description.
The Booksellers prize for the book that booksellers have enjoyed selling the most, went to Molesworth: Stories from New Zealand’s largest high country station by Harry Broad and Rob Suisted.
Vocabulary
New Zealand Post awards – sponsored by New Zealand Post which provides the prize money
Art dealer – sells paintings and other works of art
illustrated – has pictures
High country station – a very large farm (180,787 hectares); the Molesworth is open to the public mid-summer after the snow has melted.