Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

Catherine Chidgey adds to her collection of gongs by way of a wry, observant magpie.

- MARK BROATCH

Catherine Chidgey has taken out the country's biggest book prize - for the second time. The Waikato-based author and creative writing teacher won this year's Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, pocketing $64,000, for The Axeman's Carnival, a rural drama narrated by a magpie called Tama.

Chidgey is no stranger to the book awards stage. She won in 2017 for The Wish Child, was longlisted in 2018 for The Beat of the Pendulum, shortlisted for Remote Sympathy in 2021, and awarded best first book of fiction back in 1998 for In a Fishbone Church.