Catherine Chidgey has won the country's top fiction prize for her novel The Wish Child.
The Ngāruawāhia resident has been awarded the $50,000 Acorn Foundation Fiction prize for her novel, which follows two children living in Nazi Germany.
Chidgey is one of four award winners, from 150 entries, announced at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in Auckland this evening.
Paris-based poet Andrew Johnston won the poetry category for his collection Fists and Starts and Ashleigh Young took the award for general non-fiction for her collection of first-person essays, Can You Tolerate This?
Dunedin writer and historian Barbara Brookes won the illustrated non-fiction award for A History of New Zealand Women.
Four authors also won awards for their first books including Ngarino Ellis, Hera Lindsay Bird, Adam Dudding and Gina Cole.