Gail Jones & Simone Lazaroo (Australia)

August 16th - September 4th, 2023

Gail Jones is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. She is the author of two short-story collections and nine novels, and her work has been translated into several languages. She has received numerous literary awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Age Book of the Year, the South Australian Premier’s Award, the ALS Gold Medal and the Kibble Award, and has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the International Dublin Literary Award and the Prix Femina Étranger. Originally from Western Australia, she now lives in Sydney.

Simone Lazaroo was born in Singapore and migrated with her bicultural family to Western Australia when she was a young child. Her award-winning novels and most of her short stories have explored individuals struggling for survival and meaning at the juncture of culture. Her fiction has been taught in Australian, North American and European schools and universities. Her short fiction has been published in Australia, the United States, England, Spain, Portugal and Cuba, and her The Australian Fiancé is currently optioned for film. She has a PhD in Writing and is an honorary research fellow at Murdoch University, after teaching creative writing there for sixteen years. She is currently mentoring emerging writers, working with a Spanish group researching cosmopolitanism in literature, and writing about tourist locations in Europe. Her next book will be about a middle-aged Western Australian beachgoer and their travels in Europe to spread their parents’ ashes after the third wave of the pandemic. She lives near Fremantle, Western Australia.