The most coveted prize in Aotearoa fiction has been whittled down to four contenders - and they all pack a punch both nationally and internationally.

The finalists for the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards have been revealed, with four categories showcasing some of the leading and rising talent in NZ literature. 

The headline act - due in no small part to its financial weight - is often the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, which comes with both national bragging rights and an eye-watering $65,000 prize money.

And in perhaps one of the most touted fields in this category's history, all four finalists have tasted success in the leading function awards before - either in their current or previous iterations.

Booker Prize-winning author Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries) looks to follow in her own winning footsteps with her novel Birnam Wood, going head to head with 2009 winner Emily Perkins (Novel About My Wife) for her acclaimed Lioness, Pip Adam (2018 for The New Animals) with Audition and Stephen Daisley (2016 for Coming Rain) with A Better Place.

So fierce is the competition for this year's prize that there's no room in the finalists for last year's winner Catherine Chidgey (The Axeman's Carnival) with her internationally recognised follow up hit, Pet. That's despite both her books being finalists for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award – considered the world’s most valuable annual prize for a work of fiction published in English - along with Catton.

Juliet Blyth, convenor of judges for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, notes “These four singular and accomplished titles encompass pertinent themes of social justice, violence, activism, capitalism, war, identity, class, and more besides. Variously confronting, hilarious, philosophical, and heart-rending, these impressive works showcase Aotearoa storytellers at the top of their game.”

There will be overseas assistance to break the fiction deadlock, with best-selling British author, writer, broadcaster and former Booker Prize judge Natalie Haynes joining Blyth, Kiran Dass and Anthony Lapwood in selecting the fiction winner.

They're not the only authors earning accolades, with a further dozen writers of various levels of experience making the shortlists in three other categories (each worth $12,000) in what organisers are calling one of the country’s strongest-ever years for book publishing.

Six of the 16 finalists are debut authors, with 11 publishers providing shortlisted titles.

The competition for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry was equally intense, with three debut authors - Megan Kitching (At the Point of Seeing), Grace Yee (Chinese Fish) and Isla Huia (Talia) - making the cut, along with poet and map maker, Bill Nelson (Root Leaf Flower Fruit). 

Among the big names missing from the longlist are former winner Tusiata Avia's Big Fat Brown Bitch, former Poet Laureate C.K. Stead's Say I Do This: Poems 2018–2022  and creative powerhouse Ruby Solly's The Artist.

Of the chosen finalists, Erik Kennedy, convenor of judges for the Poetry Award says “These volumes blur genres and disrupt preconceptions of poetic form, they re-vision landscapes and histories, and they deploy languages other than English in distinct ways that encourage multiplicity,” he says.

Rugby league and mushrooms sit alongside biographies of adored Kiwi artists - it's a broad scope for the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction.

Multi-award-winning art historian, poet and painter Gregory O’Brien is nominated for Don Binney: Flight Path, co-author curators Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds, Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi) have their combined work in contention with Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills, along with first-time authors Liv Sisson (Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide) and Ryan Bodman (Rugby League in New Zealand: A People’s History). 

Convener of the judging panel Lynn Freeman states “This has been the year of the art book, lavishly illustrated, lovingly researched and written, insightful, profound and beautiful­ artworks in their own right. Here, too, are under-appreciated (until now) stories that provide invaluable contributions to our understanding of what it means to be a New Zealander."

The General Non-Fiction finalists are Auckland University of Technology Vice Chancellor, interdisciplinary scholar and award-winning author Damon Salesa for An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays; celebrated novelist and memoirist Barbara Else for Laughing at the Dark: A Memoir; non-fiction author Jeff Evans with Ngātokimatawhaorua: The Biography of a Waka and debut author, physician and memoirist Emma Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) with There’s a Cure for This (as Emma Espiner).

Jim Tully, convenor of judges for the General Non-Fiction Award, says this year’s entries treated judges to a wide array of narratives – rich life stories; biographies of birds, sea life and waka; and deep investigations into Kaupapa, from communes to ora (wellbeing).

 “The judges came to the unanimous decision that the final four represent the best of the best – accessible yet robust academic inquiries; novel and unheard stories; and narratives that warm, sadden and unsettle all within the same cover."

The award winners will be announced - along with the four Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book Awards recipients - on 15 May during the Auckland Writers Festival.