Two New Zealanders in Contention for $A 25,000

Two New Zealanders in Contention for $A 25,000 Prize

Two New Zealand books appear in the shortlist for the $A 25,000 Tasmania Pacific Bicentenary History Prize, which was announced yesterday.

Both books have already collected prestigious awards:

Philip Temple’s acclaimed biography A Sort of Conscience: The Wakefields (Auckland University Press) was the Montana New Zealand Book Awards Biography of the Year in 2003 and has won both the Ernest Scott History Prize and the ARANZ Ian Wards Prize.

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas by Anne Salmond (Allen Lane/Penguin Books) won the 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Montana Medal for Non-fiction.

The shortlist of six books, selected from an impressive field of 82 entries, was announced yesterday by the Tasmanian Minister for Tourism, Parks and Heritage, Ken Bacon.

“To be one of the six shortlisted in either prize is therefore an excellent commendation for any book,” Mr Bacon said.

Mr Bacon said both judging panels had a colossal task reading, reviewing, and discussing the books until reaching a decision. He thanked them for their great efforts in achieving such a daunting task.

“I understand it was not easy for the judges to narrow this excellent field down to six and it will be even more difficult to decide a winner in November.”

The winner will be announced in Hobart on Sunday 21 November 2004.

The shortlist for the Tasmania Pacific Bicentenary History Prize is:

Mussolini by Richard Bosworth;

Canvas Documentaries: Panoramic Entertainments in Nineteenth-Century Australia and New Zealand by Mimi Colligan;

Broken Song: T.G.H. Strethlow and Aboriginal Possession by Barry Hill;

Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files by Mara Moustafine;

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas by Anne Salmond; and

A Sort of Conscience: The Wakefields by Philip Temple.

--ENDS—

Notes

The Tasmania Pacific Bicentenary History Prize is part of a suite of prizes that collectively make up the Tasmania Pacific Region Prizes. The 2004 prize is the inaugural non-fiction prize and is offered to commemorate the Bicentenary of European settlement in Tasmania. The Prize will be awarded for a work of biography or history published between 1 May 2002 and 30 April 2004. Eligible authors must be living in Australia, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu or Fiji. The entries must be first editions published in English.

For further information, including the full list of nominations, see http://www.bicentenary.tas.gov.au/page.php?id=39 or contact the Tasmanian Bicentenary Office info@bicentenary.tas.gov.au

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