Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer.
She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which was widely praised by writers such as AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel and William Boyd and won a swag of awards, including: the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. The Lost Dog was also shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Western Australian Premier's Australia-Asia Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Asia-Pacific Region) and Orange Prize's Shadow Youth Panel. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Questions of Travel was the winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Award, the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Fiction and the Western Australian Premier's Prize and Award for Fiction.
Watch Michelle de Kretser interviewed on ABC TV's First Tuesday Book Club
Published: October 2021
From the twice-winner of the Miles Franklin Award, Scary Monsters is an affecting, profound and darkly funny exploration into racism, misogyny and ageism.
Published: January 2020
A rare, beguiling and brilliant ghost story from the two-time Miles Franklin Award-winning author.
Published: November 2018
The dazzling new novel from Michelle de Kretser, author of Questions of Travel, bestseller and winner of the Miles Franklin Award.
Published: September 2017
The dazzling new novel from Michelle de Kretser, author of Questions of Travel, bestseller and winner of the Miles Franklin Award.
Published: July 2013
Questions of Travel is a dazzling, compassionate and deeply moving novel from one of world literature's rising stars.
Published: August 2008
'...the best novel I have read for a long time.' - A.S. Byatt, Financial Times Long-listed for the Man Book Prize and published to wide acclaim, The Lost Dog is a moving, funny and beautiful contemporary Australian novel filled with luminous writing and startlingly wise observations.