The Scribe team extends a warm congratulations to Becky Manawatu, who has won the 2025 Keri Hulme Award for her second novel, Kataraina, published by Mākaro Press in New Zealand, and the 2025 Sargeson Prize for Short Fiction, for her short story ‘The Vase’.
14 November, 2025
Becky Manawatu wins the Keri Hulme Award and the Sargeson Prize for Short Fiction
‘The Aotearoa author of the phenomenally successful novel Auē and its critically acclaimed sequel, Kataraina, has just won two of the country’s most prestigious literary awards: The Sargeson Prize for Short Fiction, worth $15,000; and the Keri Hulme Award, worth $5,000.
The Keri Hulme Award is supported by funds raised from the sale of the original manuscript of Hulme’s Booker Prize-winning novel, the bone people. The proceeds of the auction were gifted to the Māori Literature Trust to manage the award which is intended to recognise a mid-career Māori writer who represents the “values Keri Hulme [Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe] embodied through her work and storytelling.” The honour includes $5000 and guardianship of the Keri Hulme Award taonga for two years. Manawatu is the second ever recipient, after essa may ranapiri who won the inaugural award in 2023.’
Image supplied by Becky Manawatu
Related
$35.00 AUD
Auē
WINNER OF THE JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE MITOQ BEST FIRST BOOK OF FICTION
WINNER OF THE NGAIO MARSH AWARD FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL
auē
- (verb) to cry, howl, groan, wail, bawl.
- (interjection) expression of astonishment or distress.
Taukiri was born into sorrow. Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home.
But Taukiri’s brother, Ārama, is braver than he looks, and he has a friend, and his friend has a dog, and the three of them together might just be strong enough to turn back the tide of sadness.
This bestselling multi-award-winning novel is both raw and sublime, introducing a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction.
$35.00 AUD
Kataraina
The much-awaited follow-up to the award-winning international bestseller Auē.
In Auē, eight-year-old Ārama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikōura, setting in motion the ensuing tragedy, which resulted in Stu’s death. Aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but, silenced by abuse, her voice was absent from the story.
In Kataraina, Kat and her whānau take over the telling. As one, the famiily recounts her childhood and the time when she first began to feel the greenness of the swamp in her veins — the swamp that holds her tears and the tears of generations of tīpuna; the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the day he was killed.
Unflinching in its portrayal of intergenerational trauma and violence, tender in its harnessing of the hope that future generations represent, Kataraina is a stunning novel that confirms Becky Manawatu as one of the most talented and powerful writers working in Aotearoa/New Zealand today.
Becky Manawatu
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe, Waitaha) is a West Coast author and journalist. She was born in Nelson and grew up in Waimangaroa, living now in Westport with her family. Her debut novel, Auē, won Aotearoa’s leading fiction prizes and became one of the country’s all-time fiction bestsellers.