The New Zealand Book Awards celebrate excellence, identifying the very best books for adult readers written by New Zealanders. From 2016, in a partnership between the New Zealand Book Awards Trust and the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival Trust, they will be held annually as part of the Auckland Writers Festival. This enables a valuable synergy between an event that attracted over 60,000 attendances in 2015 and New Zealand writers.

Books submitted in the four main categories, written by first‐time authors, are also eligible to win the Best First Book awards for Fiction, Poetry and Non-Fiction.

Books written entirely in te reo are eligible for the Māori Language award.

Related Contests

Shelf Unbound Competition For Best Indie/Self-Published Book
Any independently published book in any genre is eligible for entry. "Independently Published" books include self-published books and e-books (such as...

Betty Trask Prize & Awards
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. T...

Sophie Brody Award
The Sophie Brody Medal is funded by the Brodart Foundation and is given to encourage, recognize and commend outstanding achievement in Jewish Literatu...