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

Kurangaituku, 'an epic poem of a novel', won the Jann Medlicott Acorn prize at a ceremony that delivered loads of surprises'

A novel subverting a Mori 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 Mori legend of Hatupatu and the Bird-Woman but tells it from the perspective of the tale's traditional monster Kurangaituku, has won the $60,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.