What's going on in the world of Aotearoa's books? Browse the latest book news and scroll the Kete calendar for book event listings.
E aha ana i te ao pukapuka o Aotearoa? Tirohia ngā kawepūrongo pukapuka hou, ā, tirohia te maramataka o Kete mō ngā taiopenga pukapuka.
You can also check out the latest events in our Kete calendar...
In May, Kaitakawaenga Maatakiwi Wakefield and Pou Kohikohinga (Māori Collections Specialist) Ngapiu Tainui Maclure, Māori Services at Christchurch City Libraries, added an additional star to their cluster of Matariki activities: leading the books selection for Kete Books’ Winter Reading 2024 catalogue.
28 of the very best from Aotearoa! Take a look at the 2024 finalists for the New Zealand Children’s Book Awards for Children and Young Adults!
New Zealander Pip Robertson’s story ‘A River, Then the Road’, the story of a 12-year-old girl abducted by her troubled father, has won the regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Pacific.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards were announced at a ceremony at Auckland’s Aotea Centre last night. Take a look at the list of winners here.
Have you ever wondered what happens ‘behind the scenes’ of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards?
What are you looking forward to at the Auckland Writers Festival? We interviewed seven festival authors from Aotearoa on their sessions and the sessions that they’re most looking forward to. Read what they had to say!
An exciting, new-look Kete Books website is here. To celebrate, we’re giving away a beautiful kete whakairo woven by Riperata McMath (Ngāti Awa, Te Rarawa) using harakeke, plus a prize pack of 20 of the very latest books by authors from Aotearoa.
We’re delighted to announce that writer, reviewer and WORD Festival Programme Director Kiran Dass is set to join Kete as Editor in Chief in September. We’re also excited to announce that writer and reviewer Erica Stretton, fresh from running National Poetry Day, has taken on Kete’s interim editorship.
Māori owned, independent publisher HUIA was named the Children’s Publisher of the Year for Oceania at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair this week. The award is in recognition of a publisher whose books stand out for their creativity, innovation and the quality of their editorial choices.
The 2024 Storylines Margaret Mahy National Awards Day was held on Sunday and included the presentation of the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal to Elizabeth Jones and the announcement of the winners of the 2024 Storylines manuscript and illustration awards.
Mark your calendars! This year’s nationwide celebration of poetry is scheduled for Friday 23 August. Registrations and seed funding applications are now open, and event organisers across the motu are encouraged to get involved!
Not-for-profit organisation Copyright Licensing New Zealand is launching MyCreativeRights, a new platform to help Aotearoa New Zealand's creatives better manage their intellectual property.
Books Alive – the programme of large-scale events that bring hundreds of kids at a time in touch with finalist authors in the annual New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults (NZCYA) – will expand to a third regional centre in 2024, thanks to funding from literature sector supporter, the Mātātuhi Foundation.
The 2024 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize is open and this year local illustrators are invited to bring The Great Man-Eating Shark to life with colour, adventure and humour.
The NZ Booklovers Award winners were announced today. Books by Nick Davies, Eileen Merriman, David Hill, Sacha Cotter, Carlos Lehnebach, Claire Regnault, Rebecca Rice, Isaac Te Awa and Rachel Yates were named winners of the 2024 awards.
Take a look at the brilliant books in this year’s Māori Books | Ngā Pukapuka Māori and Pasifika Books catalogues. These two catalogues bring together an exciting range of recent and forthcoming Māori and Pasifika Books.
While we can’t do justice to the incredible programme of writers at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival in one short article, we’ve rolled up our sleeves and had a go. Here’s a small sample of the local talent involved in the discussions and dialogue at this year’s festival.
The 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlist is out!
Falling leaves and lit conversation! From Hawkes Bay to Taranaki, from Auckland to Featherston to Wānaka, the festival forecast for the next few months is looking glorious.
A tono for kaituhi Māori across the motu: apply to be mentored by an established and acclaimed Māori writer!
Dunedin City of Literature is helping raise the profile of local writers by connecting with other UNESCO Cities of Literature and their projects including Jakarta and Leeuwarden .
The NZ Booklovers Awards 2024 shortlist was announced today!
For Auckland Pride Month and in her last year as samesame but different festival Chair, Simie Simpson celebrates the excellence of Aotearoa’s LGBTQIA writers with a must-read book list.
Bestselling and critically acclaimed works of fiction, illuminating poetry collections, absorbing memoirs, and books that explore our whenua, flora and fauna feature alongside those that celebrate our culinary and artistic heroes and heroines in the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlists announced today.
Two books by Catherine Chidgey have been nominated for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award – the world’s most valuable annual prize for a work of fiction published in English.
Readers and the Aotearoa book sector are sharing memories of award-winning children’s author Sherryl Jordan who has died aged 74.
For the first time in 21 year history of the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement, all three awards have been made to women writers.
The judges have been announced for the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
‘…compiling and adding to this list has expanded the possibilities of my own reading, and I hope it can do the same for you.’ Saraid de Silva curates a selection of recent books by Aotearoa’s South Asian writers in this special guest editorial timed for the lead up to Diwali.
Take a look at the 2023 Storylines Notable Books (announced today)! 43 incredible books for tamariki across non-fiction; picture books; books in te reo Māori; junior fiction and YA — which means you’ll find a book for every young reader in this list!
Check out BookHub — the fast, easy way to search and buy books from Aotearoa bookshops, online!
Kiwi Christmas Books is once again collecting donations of brand new Kiwi books to gift to families who can’t afford to buy Christmas presents for their kids, or who struggle to access good books in general. Here’s how you can help.
Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival organisers are recommending festival goers vote first on the weekend of the festival (13 to 15 October) before settling in for a weekend of Aotearoa literary brilliance.
Book feasts, bookshop hops, a book ballot, readings, giveaways and this glorious books-are-my-bag tote … that’s right NZ Bookshop Day is happening this Saturday 7 October.
A ‘taut, superbly plotted crime novel with a complex protagonist … and shocking ending’ has won the Allen & Unwin Fiction Prize.
‘In my travels accompanying Sir Tīmoti and the wider touring party I have often reflected on what a fantasy it seemed like traveling around the world, not only to promote my own native language but to encourage others to do the same too, because our language, the Māori language is so revered and respected by others outside of Aotearoa-New Zealand.’ In a special editorial, written for Kete this Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Ruth Smith focuses on the growth of te reo Māori around the world.
Kia kaha te reo Māori. This week we welcome back Ruth Smith (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Ngāti Porou, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Kahungunu) as guest editor and look forward to publishing the Kete homepage, reviews and newsletter in te reo Māori.
Ka whakanui a Kete i te reo Māori — Kete celebrates te reo Māori.
The Whanganui Literary Festival turns ten this year! Take a look at the line up of incredible local authors and writers from all around the motu.
Alba Celdran has won the 2023 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize!
Hachette Aotearoa has announced the talented illustrators shortlisted for this year’s Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize!
The 2023 New Zealand Books Awards for Children and Young Adults have been awarded tonight! For the first time ever, the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award has gone to a bilingual book, Te Wehenga. Congratulations to author and illustrator Mat Tait and to the authors, illustrators and publishers behind all tonight’s winning books.
Crime Time TV: The Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists for Best Non-Fiction, First Novel, and Best Novel have been named in a video released by the awards. Take a look.
Overwhelmed by the incredible line-up for WORD and not sure where to start? Good news — the festival’s Executive Director Steph Walker has you covered. Here are five unmissable events!
Outstanding booksellers and publishers in Aotearoa’s vibrant book industry have been named … along with the biggest selling book of the publishing year.
The 2023 PANZ Book Design Awards shortlist was announced on Tuesday. Readers, bibliophiles, and design and art enthusiasts alike will find a huge amount to admire about this shortlist. Take a look.
If you’re in or around Tāmaki Makaurau, take a look at the lineup for Auckland Council Libraries’ annual festival celebrating the city’s writers and readers. As well as author talks, this year’s festival features The Bestie collection — ten bestselling books by Auckland authors.
Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2023 winners announced!
Kete and Storylines are launching a new monthly bestseller list to help showcase and promote the excellent junior and young adult fiction books written and published in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand and the Margaret Mahy Estate are excited to announce the return of the Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize for its fifth year.
17 February: NZ Booklovers Awards 2023 Shortlist announced
It’s here - 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Longlist announced
The Whitcoulls Kids’ Top 50 Books List is out - have more books from Aotearoa New Zealand made the cut?
The long list for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction includes two New Zealand writers, Catherine Chidgey and Meg Mason
Author: Renata Hopkins. Numerous four-letter words were, no doubt, on high rotate in the lead-up to this year’s WORD Christchurch Festival launch — and only one of them would have been ‘word’. But despite the Covid odds the festival team once again delivered an ambitious and innovative programme that ranged from politics to poetry, and often delivered both at once.
Two Te Papa Press books win prestigious Whitley Awards for zoological literature
THE BEST TE REO MĀORI BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS FOR 2021
Historian Dr Monty Soutar, ONZM (Ngati Porou, Ngati Awa, Ngai Tai ki Tamaki, Ngati Kahungunu) has been awarded the prestigious Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship.
8 October 2020: Yarns in Barns in the Wairarapa starts today
9 September 2020. WORD Christchurch announces programme for Spring Festival 28 October-1 November
4 August 2020. The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges for 2021 are announced as submissions open