Fiona Farrell is one of New Zealand’s leading writers, publishing work across a variety of genres.
Her first novel, The Skinny Louie Book won the 1992 New Zealand Book Award for fiction. The Hopeful Traveller (2001) and the widely popular Book Book (2004) and her most recent novel, Limestone (2008) were shortlisted for Montana New Zealand Book Awards. These novels and her later Mr Allbones’ Ferrets (2007) and Limestone (2008), were also nominated for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. Her short fiction has appeared in the company of Alice Munro and Hanif Kureishi in Heinemann UK’s annual Best Short Stories (1990 and 1994, ed. Gordon and Hughes). She has published three collections of poetry, and her work appears in major anthologies including The Oxford Book of New Zealand Poetry and Bloodaxe’s best-selling Being Alive. Her play Chook Chook is one of Playmarket New Zealand’s most frequently requested scripts.
She is a frequent guest at festivals in New Zealand, and has also appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival.
She has held residencies in France (the 1995 Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton) and Ireland (the 2006 Rathcoola Residency) and the 2011 Robert Burns Fellowship.
Fiona Farrell has received numerous awards, most notably the 2007 New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction and the 2013 Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship.