Charlotte Wood

Charlotte Wood was born in 1965 in Cooma, New South Wales, Australia. She graduated with a master of creative arts from the University of Technology, Sydney and completed her doctorate at the University of New South Wales.

Her first novel »Pieces of a Girl« (1999), which won the Jim Hamilton Award for an unpublished manuscript in 1998, tells of a woman who takes control of her destiny late in life when childhood memories and the present-day events threaten to collide. Wood’s second novel »The Submerged Cathedral« (2004) is the heartbreaking chronicle of a love affair spanning twenty years. Ten years after its publication Wood stated that, upon reflection, she had written her first two novels in a kind of innocent dream, for the love of language, without any awareness of the demands made by publishing houses and readers. »The Children« (2007) was inspired by her desire to understand a female friend who had been a sensitive, bookish child, and who grew up to become a war reporter who was undaunted by violence and suffering. The story centers on a foreign correspondent who, together with her siblings, returns home when her father is gravely injured. At their father’s hospital bed they struggle with their emotions, memories and different relationships. »Animal People« (2011) follows Stephen, one of the characters from »The Children«, during one of the most catastrophic and surprising days in his life. He comes to realize that only love can liberate him from his dead-end job and demanding family. Entertaining and compassionate, the novel is both a portrait of urban life as well as a meditation on the difficult relationship between mankind and animals. In her latest work »The Natural Way of Things« (2015), »a masterpiece of feminist horror« (»The Guardian«), Wood tells of a group of young women held captive in the Australian outback. She has also published a collection of interviews with Australian writers »The Writer’s Room« (2016), edited an anthology about sibling relationships »Brothers and Sisters« (2009), as released a book with her own musings on cooking titled »Love and Hunger« (2012).

Charlotte Wood’s books have been shortlisted for numerous literary awards. In 2016 she received the Stella Prize for »The Natural Way of Things« and won the writer in residence fellowship at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre. »The Australian« newspaper declared Wood »one of our most original and provocative writers«. The author lives in Sydney.

Pieces of a Girl

Picador

Sydney, 1999

The Submerged Cathedral

Vintage

Melbourne, 2004

The Children

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, 2007

Animal People

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, 2011

Love and Hunger

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, 2012

The Natural Way of Things

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, 2015

The Writer’s Room

Conversations About Writing

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, 2016