Catherine Chidgey’s rare honour, two books nominated for $176,000 prize

Sunday, 28 January 2024

Catherine Chidgey’s The Axeman’s Carnival and Pet were both longlisted alongside more than 60 other novels from around the world.

Two books by Catherine Chidgey, The Axeman’s Carnival and Pet (Te Herenga Waka University Press), have been nominated for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award, worth $176,921. Her novels, published in 2022 and 2023, are up against 68 other works from 35 countries, including Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood.

Congratulations! You published both books in quick succession - how were you able to do that?

Tama Magpie dictated The Axeman’s Carnival to me, of course, so we made pretty short work of that. My books are never easy to write, but with Tama it really did feel as if he was speaking through me. I wrote the opening paragraph, and that was it – his voice was in my head, and he wouldn’t shut up. Then in the first half of 2021, I was lucky enough to have study leave from my wonderful teaching job at the University of Waikato – paid writing time! I wrote most of Pet then, immersing myself in the 1980s by bingeing on Fame, The Love Boat and Miss Universe on YouTube. I also revisited my Catholic primary school days via my old exercise books that were lovingly covered in wallpaper by my mother.

Sorry for the trite question, but how does it feel to have global recognition for both titles and what's been your pinch-yourself moment so far?

I’m delighted – and so grateful to the nominating libraries (Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington). It’s brilliant timing for both books, because the mass-market paperback edition of Pet is due out very soon in the UK, followed by Tama’s international release. Lists like this are such a fantastic way of bringing your work to the attention of offshore readers. I was stunned to learn that two books made it to the longlist – I didn’t realise both were eligible.

The prize money is extraordinary - if you win, what would you do with it?

I’d put it towards a much-needed bigger house with a sound-proofed (child-proofed, cat-proofed, magpie-proofed) writing room. Tama has his eye on a diamond piercing (he won’t say for where) and a cubic metre of earthworms.

Lastly, have you read the other longlisted nominations?

I’ve read and loved Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood, as well as Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. I’m looking forward to diving into some of the translated books on the longlist, which might not otherwise have crossed my path.

At the moment I’m reading Sarah Bernstein’s Booker shortlisted Study for Obedience, which is growing on me with every page. The style is quite formal, distanced, almost chilly, and then gradually you realise that the narrator has become like this due to her intolerable background – so I read that quite mannered style as a self-protective device. It’s very clever.