Whiti Hereaka wins New Zealand’s Ockham fiction prize for novel subverting Māori myth

Whiti Hereaka has won the Jann Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction at the Ockham New Zealand book awards for her novel Kurangaituku. Photograph: Tabitha Arthur Photography/Tabitha Arthur Photography.

A novel subverting a Māori myth has taken home New Zealand’s most prestigious writing prize at this year’s Ockham New Zealand book awards.

Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka, which draws on the Māori legend of Hatupatu and the Bird-Woman but tells it from the perspective of the tale’s traditional monster Kurangaituku, has won the NZ$60,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction.