An historian who was badly injured when hit by a truck and was unable to attend the launch of her book, has been named the supreme winner at the New Zealand Post book awards.
Dame Judith Binney won the overall award for her work Encircled Lands in Auckland on Friday night.
The book is about Tuhoe iwi from 1820 - 1921 and the quest for self-governance of their land.
Judges described it as an exhaustive and comprehensive history that will change people's understanding of Tuhoe's situation.
Dame Judith says she had only been half hoping to win one of the four categories.
She says she has fully recovered from her injuries.
Other winners
Debut novelist Alison Wong beat established writers Fiona Farrell and Owen Marshall, to win the award for fiction, with As The Earth Turns Silver.
Judges praised Wong for bringing a new voice and new themes to New Zealand fiction.
Brian Turner won the award for poetry for his collection Just This.
And Al Brown, the co-owner of the Logan Brown restaurant in Wellington, won the illustrated non-fiction category for his book Go Fish: Recipes and Stories from the New Zealand Coast.
