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Damien Wilkins awarded inaugural New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize
Wellington author Damien Wilkins has been awarded the $100,000 inaugural New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize, announced by the New Zealand Post Group and the Katherine Mansfield Menton Trust.
The new prize consists of return airfares for two to London and the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship. Offered in conjunction with the Winn-Manson Menton Trust, the Fellowship enables a New Zealand author to work at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, where writer Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote.
The prize and fellowship makes this the most valuable New Zealand international writer's residency programme. Damien Wilkins says it's an honour to be the first recipient of this prize.
"One of the most desirable addresses in New Zealand literature has always been the South of France. This fellowship, hugely enhanced by New Zealand Post with the addition of the prize, gives the writer the means to live and work in a wonderfully productive place. Katherine Mansfield, of course, went to Menton in the 1920s, as part of her cure for TB. The idea of a restorative environment still applies - and I do hope to get better - better as a writer."
A recent study by the New Zealand Society of Authors found the annual mean income of a New Zealand author, as a result of writing, is less than $15,500 a year. The New Zealand minimum wage is $23,400.
New Zealand Post Chief Executive John Allen says writers in New Zealand often struggle financially.
"New Zealand Post acknowledges this, which is why it has significantly increased the size of the cash prize from previous sponsors' contributions. The Katherine Mansfield Fellowship has supported many authors over the years, including Janet Frame, Whiti Ihimaera, Vincent O'Sullivan, Dame Fiona Kidman and recent Mann Booker prize shortlister, Lloyd Jones.
"I am personally very excited about this sponsorship and honoured to be part of such a fine New Zealand literary tradition. New Zealand Post has proudly supported the literary arts and literacy for many years, including Books in Homes, Children and Young Adults Book Awards and Literacy Aotearoa.
"We are pleased to be in a position to help New Zealanders develop the next chapter of the New Zealand story."
Chair of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Trust Richard Cathie says this prize is very significant. "A $100,000 prize takes the Fellowship, which has been supporting New Zealand writers, poets and playwrights for 37 years, to a new level. We expect to be able to really strengthen New Zealand's body of literary work and raise the profile of New Zealand authors around the world with this prize."
