The Booker Prize has been awarded annually for an English-language novel published in the United Kingdom or Ireland since 1969. It was initially known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019). The first New Zealander to win the award was Keri Hulme on 31 October 1985 for her novel "The Bone People". Keri was also the first author to win with a debut novel. 

Find out more:

• The Booker Prizes: About the Booker Prize, URL: https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/about-the-booker-prize
• Keri Hulme wins Booker Prize ', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keri-hulme-wins-booker-prize, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 9-Sep-2020 
• Read NZ Te Pou Muramura: Writer's File: Keri Hulme, URL: https://www.read-nz.org/writers-files/writer/hulme-keri

NY Times Book Review (17 Nov 1985): "Set on the harsh South Island beaches of New Zealand, bound in Māori myth and entwined with Christian symbols, Miss Hulme's provocative novel summons power with words, as a conjuror's spell. She casts her magic on three fiercely unique characters, but reminds us that we, like them, are "nothing more than people", and that, in a sense, we are all cannibals, compelled to consume the gift of love with demands for perfection. But they, and perhaps we too, are capable of change." 

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A summary of Keri's writing output during the 1970s and 1980s is given in Read NZ Te Pou Muramura: Writer's File: Keri Hulme

"Some of her earliest work appeared in Lost Voices (1979) under the pseudonym of Kai Tainui, who also made a brief appearance in Landfall 138 (1981) with the story ‘A Nightsong for the Shining Cuckoo’. ‘Nightsong’ subsequently appeared in Hulme’s collection of short stories, Te Kaihau/The Windeater. Despite a fairly small output, Hulme won several awards for her writing, including the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award for her short story ‘Hooks and Feelers’ (1975), the Māori Trust Fund Prize (for writing in English; 1977), the ICI Writing Bursary (1982) and the New Zealand Writing Bursary (1983). In her first collection of poetry, The Silences Between (Moeraki Conversations) (Auckland University Press, 1982), six ‘conversations’ are separated (or linked) by pieces called ‘silences’... In 1977, Keri Hulme received the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award. In the same year, she shared the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago with Roger Hall... The bone people (Spiral Collective, 1984) won the 1984 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction, and the prestigious international Booker Prize in 1985."  

Keri's later publications and awards listed by Read NZ Te Pou Muramura: Writer's File: Keri Hulme:

"The bone people was followed by a collection of poems, Lost Possessions (Victoria University Press, 1985) and a collection of short stories Te Kaihau: The Windeater (Victoria University Press, 1986)...In 1987, Hulme was awarded the Chianti Ruffino Regional Award and in 1989 published Homeplaces, her homage to Okarito, Moeraki and Stewart Island. A further collection of poems, Strands, was published in 1992 (Auckland University Press)... In 1986, she was awarded third place for Te Kaihau/The Windeater at the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards... Keri Hulme's second collection of short stories, Stonefish, was published by Huia Publishers in 2004... Her novella 'Te Kaihau/The Windeater' appears in Nine New Zealand Novellas, edited by Peter Simpson (Reed, 2005). This is a companion volume to Seven New Zealand Novellas. The bone people was selected as the 2014 Great Kiwi Classic." 

This DigitalNZ story was compiled in October 2023