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Back & Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young and Curious by Gregory O’Brien, published by Auckland University Press, has won the 2009 Non-Fiction Prize at the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Back & Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young and Curious by Gregory O’Brien, published by Auckland University Press, has won the 2009 Non-Fiction Prize at the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Describing Back & Beyond as a fascinating journey through New Zealand’s history and culture, the Judges’ Report says, “It challenges preconceptions about the nature of our art and its place in our world, and encourages readers to think about the way they respond to art.”

Back & Beyond was selected as the Non-Fiction Category winner from five finalist books published in New Zealand in 2008.

“The five titles chosen as the finalists provide inspiration, revelation, information and entertainment on widely disparate topics,” noted the Judges.

“They all have the capacity to change the inner landscape of their readers, to start them thinking in new directions, even to inspire journeys of their own.”

Gregory O’Brien, a graduate of The University of Auckland, is a multi-award-winning author and editor with collections of poetry, fiction, books on New Zealand art and artists and many essays to his credit. Back and Beyond is the companion volume to Welcome to the South Seas: Contemporary New Zealand Art for Young People (AUP, 2004), which won the 2005 Elsie Locke Award and the Non-fiction Category of the 2005 New Zealand Post Book Awards.

Gregory migrated south to Wellington in 1990, where he lives with his partner, poet Jenny Bornholdt, and works as a senior curator with Wellington’s City Gallery.

Auckland University Press Director Sam Elworthy says the Press is very lucky to work with one of New Zealand’s great creative omnivores in author Greg O’Brien.

“We are delighted that Greg’s achievement in Back & Beyond has been recognised and the book has won the Non-Fiction prize at this year’s New Zealand Post Book Awards.”

Back & Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young and Curious by Gregory O’Brien
Published by Auckland University Press
Hardback; colour and b&w illus; ISBN: 9781869404048; RRP $34.99