The winner of the 2009 Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry is celebrating what she describes as an extraordinary win.

Emily Perkins won the award for Novel About My Wife. The judges describe it as a sophisticated and urban book and says Perkins is working at the height of her powers.

Perkins says she worked on the novel and thought about it every day for three years. She says the work was like a child to her and as much as someone adores their own child, they never expect it will be awarded the prize at the beauty pageant.

Jill Trevelyan has won the Medal for Non-Fiction for her biography Rita Angus: An Artist's Life.

The complete list of 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards winners is as follows:

Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry winner and Fiction category winner: Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury).

Fiction runners-up: The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi (Longacre Press) and Acid Song by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press).

Poetry category winner: The Rocky Shore by Jenny Bornholdt (Victoria University Press).

Montana Medal for Non-Fiction winner and Biography category winner: Rita Angus: An Artist?s Life by Jill Trevelyan (Te Papa Press).

Environment category winner: A Continent on the Move: New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Century edited by Ian J. Graham (Geological Society of New Zealand).

History category winner: Buying the Land, Selling the Land by Richard Boast (Victoria University Press).

Reference and Anthology category winner: Collected Poems 1951?2006 by CK Stead (Auckland University Press).

Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture category winner: Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston (Penguin Group New Zealand).

Illustrative category winner: Len Castle: Making the Molecules Dance by Len Castle (Lopdell House Gallery).

Maori Language Award:

He Pataka Kupu te kai a te rangatira, the first-ever dictionary written entirely in te reo Maori, has won this year?s Te Reo Maori Literary prize at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

The NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction: The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press).

Sam Sampson wins the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry for his collection, Everything Talks (Auckland University Press).

The NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction: Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Godwit).