Be the first to know — subscribe today
Literary prizes and book awards
Christchurch City Libraries lists literary prize winners and links to catalogue searches, but we may not hold copies of all titles mentioned.
This page links you to winners and nominees for a range of book prizes and awards.
Latest prize news
- Children’s literary prizes
- New Zealand literary prizes
- Writing prizes (essays and unpublished works)
- International prizes including
Literary prize calendar — lists when prizes are awarded.
New Zealand
- Kathleen Grattan Award
- New Zealand Post Book Awards (before 2010, the awards were known as the Montana New Zealand Book Awards)
- Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards
- Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel
- Nielsen BookData New Zealand Booksellers’ Choice Award
- Pikihuia Awards for Māori writers
- Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement
- Prize in Modern Letters
- Sir Julius Vogel awards (science fiction, fantasy and horror)
- Wattie Book Awards
Writing Prizes
These are awards for essays and/or unpublished works.
- BNZ Literary Awards (formerly the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Awards)
- Landfall Essay Competition
- Pikihuia Awards for Māori writers
- Re-Draft (open to any teenage writer in New Zealand)
International
Authors
Prizes awarded for the author’s body of work.
Fiction
- Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
- Commonwealth Writers
- Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread)
- Dylan Thomas Prize
- International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize - Fiction
- Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize
- Lambda Literary Awards
- John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
- Man Booker Prize
- National Book Awards (USA)
- National Book Critics Circle Awards
- PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction
- Prix Goncourt (French prose)
- Pulitzer Prize
- Stonewall Book Awards (formerly known as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Book Awards)
- Women's Prize for Fiction
Genre fiction - Mystery, horror, crime, fantasy and science fiction
- Anthony Awards (mystery)
- Bram Stoker Awards (horror)
- Crime Writers’ Association Awards
- Edgar Allan Poe Awards (mystery)
- Hugo Awards for Science Fiction
- Mythopoeic Awards for fantastic and mythic literature
- Nebula Awards for Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel
- Sir Julius Vogel awards (science fiction, fantasy and horror by New Zealanders)
- World Fantasy Awards
Lists
- Granta Best of Young British Novelists 1993 and 2003
- Notable Books
New Writers
- Betty Trask Awards
- Commonwealth Writers
- The Costa First Novel Award
- The CWA New Blood Dagger (mystery/crime)
- Dylan Thomas Prize (restricted to authors under 30)
- Guardian First Book Award (was Guardian Fiction Award)
- John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (awards the best work of literature by a writer under 35)
- Orange Broadband Award for New Writers
Non-fiction
- Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
- Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
- The Costa Biography Award
- The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
- Hugo Awards - Non-Fiction & Related
- International Einhard Prize for Biography
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize - Biography
- John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (awards the best work of literature by a writer under 35)
- The Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize - Non-Fiction
- Mythopoeic Awards for fantastic and mythic scholarship
- National Book Awards - Non-Fiction
- National Book Critics Circle Award
- Pulitzer Prizes (Biography & Autobiography, History, General non-fiction)
- Royal Society Prizes for Science Books (formerly Aventis)
- Stonewall Book Awards (formerly known as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Book Awards)
