The Hut Builder

Laurence Fearnley (Dunedin) wins the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction for her seventh novel, The Hut Builder. Emily Perkins, on the Awards judging panel, said this is ‘elating, transformative prose.ÂÂÂ’ ‘In this novel Laurence Fearnley continues her committed exploration of Southern lives, and in doing so creates something new – a 21st century approach to a sort of 20th century Pakeha origin story. Through the character of Boden Black, butcher, poet, and sometime mountaineer, she gives voice to the taciturn archetype of the Great Southern man, and reaches into awkward corners of the psyche with tenderness and empathyÂÂÂ’, says Perkins. I suddenly found myself in front of a scene of such beauty that it took my breath away . . .' As a boy in the late 1930s, young Boden's life is changed for ever the day his neighbour Dudley drives him over the mountains into the vast snow-covered plains of the Mackenzie Country. He realises he will never be the same again. Years later, the 20-year-old Boden, now a university student, helps build an alpine hut high up on the eastern slopes of Mount Cook. Living in snow caves while the hut is built, Boden forms important relationships with members of his working party, most notably with Walter, a conscientious objector from the Second World War. Real historical characters (such as Edmund Hillary and literary editor Charles Brasch) make appearances in the novel. First published September 2010.

Finalist in the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards - Fiction category