Triple accolade for AUP book

An Auckland University Press title, Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964, has scored a hat-trick at the NZ Post Book Awards.

Chris Bourke’s book won the 2011 People's Choice Award, the General Non-Fiction Award and the 2011 Book of the Year Award.

NZ Post Book Awards convenor of judges, Paul Diamond, described the winning work as a magnificent book that achieves what it sets out to do, and reveals a hidden social history. “Blue Smoke tells us about ourselves, our music, and the way we take things from overseas and make them our own.”

Charmaine Pountney, a judge, said: ”It is a book about music and musicians, many of whom Bourke has interviewed himself, drawing out anecdotes that enrich our understanding of our nation’s cultural development.”

Chris Bourke, who lives in Wellington, describes Blue Smoke as “a music history before it is a social or cultural history”.

Two other AUP authors received awards: Poia Rewi the Best First Book of Non-Fiction award for Whaikorero, and Lynn Jenner the Best First Book Award for Poetry for Dear Sweet Harry.

AUP Director Dr Sam Elworthy says: “It was a big night for Auckland University Press at the book awards this year: picking up the prizes with Lynn Jenner for Dear Sweet Harry and Poia Rewi and whanau for Whaikorero, sitting and celebrating with Paul Millar (author of finalist No Fretful Sleeper) and Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan (who edited Mauri Ola), and then a succession of the biggest wins for Chris Bourke’s Blue Smoke.

“Chris Bourke’s book captures this country’s great songs and stories, it’s a work of deep research and engaging narrative, and the Press team just loved turning it into a beautiful piece of publishing. Picking up the trifecta — book of the year, people’s choice, and nonfiction — was a stunner and now we’ll just have to do it again next year!”