Brannavan Gnanalingam | |
---|---|
Born | 20 October 1983 Sri Lanka |
Citizenship | New Zealand |
Occupation(s) | Author, Lawyer |
Brannavan Gnanalingam (born 20 October 1983, Sri Lanka) [1] is a New Zealand author and practicing lawyer with the New Zealand firm Buddle Findlay at its Wellington office. [2]
Gnanalingam was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in Lower Hutt. His debut novel Getting Under Sail was published by Lawrence and Gibson in 2011. [3] [4] The novel was based on a trip Gnanalingam undertook with two friends from Morocco to Ghana, which included being mistakenly detained for the French tourist killings in Mauritania. [5] The book was praised for "the narrator’s wry honesty, miles away from the usual Africa travelogue clichés". [6] In 2013 his second novel You Should Have Come Here When You Were Not Here was published and received positive reviews in New Zealand. [7] [8] The book follows a trip by a middle-aged woman to Paris, who instead of finding it the city of love, experiences it as a cold and disorienting place. The book was based on Gnanalingam's time spent in Paris between 2012 and 2013. [9] [10] His third novel, Credit in the Straight World (2015), his first set in New Zealand, [11] is "a satirical account of the global financial crisis" described by the New Zealand Herald as a "tale of surreal humour and genuine insight". [12] His fourth novel, A Briefcase, Two Pies and a Penthouse (2016), was longlisted for the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards novel of the year. [13]
His fifth novel published in 2017, Sodden Downstream, was shortlisted for the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards novel of the year with The Spinoff books editor Steve Braunias noting that his inclusion was "a particularly good call." [14] In a review of the book The Pantograph Punch said, "His rendition of Kiwi idiom is some of the best you’ll read." [15] Gnanalingam confessed to The Dominion Post, talking about Sodden Downstream, "...[T]here are so few Sri Lankan characters in New Zealand literature. I wanted to reflect that....It's...based on the fact that the Sri Lankan Civil War was something that my family and I went through, so I can write from personal experience." [16]
His 2020 novel, Sprigs, won the 2021 Best Novel prize at the Ngaio Marsh Awards [17] and was shortlisted for the 2021 Fiction award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. [18] The Guardian described Sprigs as "an incendiary novel" and "an important examination of racism, violence and toxic masculinity that everyone should read". [19]
In 2022, Gnanalingam latest novel, Slow Down, You're Here, was released. The book was described as a horror novel, received critical praise [20] [21] and was listed as one of the best books of the year by The Spinoff. [22]
From 2006–2016, Gnanalingam contributed to the online publication The Lumière Reader, [23] [24] which is now on hiatus. [25] He covered film festivals such as Venice, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Cannes when writing for this publication. [9] He has also written for The Spinoff , [1] The New Zealand Listener, the New Zealand Herald [26] and The Dominion Post. [27] As of 2024 he was a contributing editor for Wellington-based Lawrence & Gibson publishing collective. [28]
Catherine Chidgey is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer and university lecturer. She has published eight novels. Her honours include the inaugural Prize in Modern Letters; the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize ; the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on two occasions; and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize.
Steven Carl Braunias is a New Zealand author, columnist, journalist and editor. He is the author of 13 books.
Donna Tusiata Avia is a New Zealand poet and children's author. She has been recognised for her work through receiving a 2020 Queen's Birthday Honour and in 2021 her collection The Savage Coloniser won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Savage Coloniser and her previous work Wild Dogs Under My Skirt have been turned into live stage plays presented in a number of locations.
Sri Lankan New Zealanders, also known informally as “Sriwis”, are New Zealanders of Sri Lankan heritage living in New Zealand. This includes at least three Sri Lankan ethnic groups in New Zealand: the Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamil and Burghers. Sri Lankans in New Zealand span over 140 years emigration. In 2013 there were 9,579 Sri Lankans in New Zealand and increased to 16,830 by 2018.
Philippa Jane Ussher is one of New Zealand's foremost documentary and portrait photographers. She joined the New Zealand Listener in 1977 and was chief photographer for 29 years, leaving to take up a career as a freelance photographer and author.
Lawrence & Gibson is an independent publisher founded in Wellington, New Zealand in 2005. The organisation functions as a non-profit worker collective where profits are split 50/50 between author and publisher.
Murdoch Stephens is a New Zealand author, researcher and refugee advocate. He is founding editor of Lawrence & Gibson publishing and previously wrote under the name Richard Meros. In 2013 he founded the Double the Refugee Quota campaign that led to the doubling of New Zealand's refugee quota in 2020.
Chris Tse is a New Zealand poet, short story writer and editor. His works explore questions of identity, including his Chinese heritage and queer identity. His first full-length poetry collection, How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes, won the Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2016. In 2022, he was appointed as the New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2022 to 2024. In February 2024, his term was extended by another year.
Alice Tawhai is the pen name of a New Zealand fiction writer. She is of Tainui and Ngāpuhi tribes.
Diana Wichtel is a New Zealand writer and critic. Her mother, Patricia, was a New Zealander; her father, Benjamin Wichtel, a Polish Jew who escaped from the Nazi train taking his family to the Treblinka extermination camp in World War II. When she was 13 her mother brought her to New Zealand to live, along with her two siblings. Although he was expected to follow, she never saw her father again. The mystery of her father's life took years to unravel, and is recounted in Wichtel's award-winning book Driving toTreblinka. The book has been called "a masterpiece" by New Zealand writer Steve Braunias. New Zealand columnist Margo White wrote: "This is a story that reminds readers of the atrocities that ordinary people did to each other, the effect on those who survived, and the reverberations felt through following generations."
Rachel Bush was a New Zealand poet and teacher. Her work was widely published in books, anthologies and literary magazines.
Rebecca K Reilly is a New Zealand author. Her debut novel Greta & Valdin (2021) was a bestseller in New Zealand and received critical acclaim. It received the 2019 Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing and the Hubert Church prize for the best first book of fiction at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Rose Lu is a writer and software developer. Her book All Who Live on Islands is a series of autobiographic essays sharing her experience of growing up as a Chinese person in New Zealand and has been acclaimed as "an intimate and confident view of New Zealand life through the eyes of an Asian immigrant". In 2018, she was a recipient of the Creative Nonfiction Prize at the International Institute of Modern Letters. She has a bachelor's degree in mechatronics engineering from University of Canterbury and a master's degree in creative writing from Victoria University of Wellington.
Kirsten Warner is a New Zealand novelist, poet and journalist. Her debut novel, The Sound of Breaking Glass (2018), won the Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Tayi Tibble is a New Zealand poet. Her poetry reflects Māori culture and her own family history. Her first collection of poetry, Poūkahangatus (2018), received the Jessie Mackay Prize for Poetry at the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and was published in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2022. Her second collection, Rangikura, was published in 2021.
Gina Annette Cole is a New Zealand writer and lawyer. Her writing is inspired by her experiences as a queer Fijian woman. Her short story collection Black Ice Matter received the award for best first book of fiction at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her first novel Na Viro was published in July 2022.
Kirsten McDougall is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer and creative writing lecturer. She has published three novels, and won the 2021 Sunday Star-Times short story competition.
essa may ranapiri is a New Zealand poet and visual artist. Their first collection of poetry, Ransack (2019), was longlisted for the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Their second collection, Echidna, was published in 2022.
Always Becominging is a New Zealand poet, editor and co-founder of the publishing house We Are Babies. Her 2021 publication I Am a Human Being won the best first book award (poetry) at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Dominic Hoey is an author and musician based in Auckland, New Zealand. Much of his writing deals with working class challenges of poverty and illness, including living with a debilitating bone disease.