Catherine Chidgey
Catherine Chidgey is one of New Zealand's greatest living writers (Radio NZ). She has twice won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards: The Wish Child won in 2017 and The Axeman's Carnival in 2023. Her latest novel, The Book of Guilt, was shortlisted for the award in 2026. Her novels have been published to international acclaim. Her debut, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Her second novel, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times Book Review and a Best Book in the LA Times. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Catherine has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize. Catherine lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
2026 festival sessions
The Book of Guilt
Catherine Chidgey in conversation with Jane Forrest Waghorn
10am-11am, Saturday 25 July, Whitehaven Theatre Marlborough, $25
Catherine returns by popular demand to the Marlborough Book Festival to discuss The Book of Guilt, widely critically acclaimed as both a deeply immersive page-turner and a serious exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others. Set in a sinisterly skewed version of England in 1979, thirteen-year-old triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Each day the boys must take medicine to protect themselves from a mysterious illness to which many of their friends have succumbed. Meanwhile, in Exeter, Nancy lives a secluded life with her parents, who never allow her to leave the house. As the government moves to close the Sycamore homes and reintegrate their residents into the community, the lives of the triplets and Nancy begin to intertwine, leading to revelations that will shake them to their core.
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