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NZ Herald
July 20, 2002
Hood's civic crèche book wins top Montana Award
NZPA
A City Possessed, a controversial book
about the Christchurch Civic Creche case, has won New Zealand's premier
literary award.
Dunedin author Lynley Hood won the Montana non-fiction
book award worth $10,000 for the work.
The 600-page book gives an account of the controversial Christchurch Civic
Creche case, which led to the jailing of crèche worker Peter Ellis in 1993 on
child abuse charges.
Hood has called for a Royal Commission into the case.
Her book, which claims systemic flaws in the justice system, also won the
history category, for which she received a prize of $5000 at the awards
ceremony.
Prime Minister Helen Clark tonight announced the winners of the Montana New
Zealand Book Awards in Auckland.
The convenor of the judging panel, Witi Ihimaera, said A City Possessed was
an extraordinary book which could not be ignored.
"With great tenacity, Hood leads us to an understanding of how the
events in Christchurch could have occurred.
"The courage of Dr Hood in pursuing the book's publication has given us
a narrative that, for all its controversy, makes it a stand-out not just in
this year but in any year," Ihimaera said.
Hundreds of New Zealanders obviously agreed with him and the other judges.
A City Possessed was also a clear winner of the coveted Reader's Choice
Award.
The Deutz Medal for best fiction book, worth $15,000, went to rookie Craig
Marriner for his debut novel Stonedogs.
Marriner's novel was selected over the works of two previous Deutz Medal
winners -- Elizabeth Knox (for Billie's Kiss) and Lloyd Jones (for Here at the
End of the World we Learn to Dance).
Stonedogs won the New Zealand Society of Authors Hubert Church best first
book award for fiction.
Ihimaera said Stonedogs was subversive and crackling with energy.
"It's a terrific, relentless, rock'n roll roller-coaster of a read. It's
blackly funny, it's disarming, it has a wink in its eye, and it bleeds all
over the place."
A special honour award was presented to Eruera Manuera by Te Onehou Phillis.
Manuera's book is the first selected as a category (biography) finalist to be
written entirely in Maori.
Maurice Shadbolt received the AW Reed Lifetime Achievement Award.
Shadbolt has developed an impressive and well-respected publishing history.
He has encouraged and assisted many of New Zealand's foremost writers
early in their own careers.
His triptych of award-winning, historical novels (Season of the Jew, Monday's
Warriors and The House of Strife) remains among the most important works of
historical fiction by a New
Zealand writer.
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