Becky Manawatu
Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe a Waitaha, Pākehā) is a writer and journalist. Her debut novel Auē won both Best First Book (Fiction) and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2020 Ockham NZ Book Awards, and the Best Crime Novel award at the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards.
Becky, who lives in Waimangaroa, is the current University of Otago Burns Fellow.
2021 festival sessions
Auē
- in conversation with Jane Forrest Waghorn
What’s it like when your first published novel wins big awards and receives rave reviews?
Auē, Becky’s story of good kids and grim circumstances set just down the road in Kaikōura, has won a place in the hearts of her many readers.
True Grit
- with Brannavan Gnanalingam in conversation with Tessa Nicholson
Becky Manawatu and Brannavan Gnanalingam are two exciting new writers tackling confronting subject matter with compassion and courage.
Champions of the underdog, they have both drawn on personal traumatic experiences to inform their highly acclaimed novels, Auē and Sprigs, and gone on to win the favour of award judges and the reading public.