- Catherine Chidgey
Catherine Chidgey was born in
New Zealand in 1970 and grew up in theHutt Valley . She has degrees in creative writing,psychology , and German literature.In 1997 Catherine was awarded the Adam Foundation Prize for her portfolio produced during study with
Bill Manhire atVictoria University of Wellington 's Creative Writing Programme.Her debut novel, "In a fishbone church", was published in 1998 and has been widely praised in New Zealand and overseas, winning the Hubert Church Award for Best First Book of Fiction in The Montana NZ Book Awards in 1998. In 1999 "In a fishbone church" won the South East Asia and Pacific Region Prize in the
Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, aBetty Trask Prize for a first book (UK) and was included in theOrange Prize for Fiction (UK) longlist.Her second novel, "Golden Deeds" was published in 2000, and was runner-up for the Deutz Medal for Fiction in the 2000 The Montana NZ Book Awards. It has been published by Picador in the UK and under the title "The Strength of the Sun" in the US, where it was a The New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year'.
"The Transformation", Catherine's third novel, was published in November 2003.
Catherine Chidgey’s honours include the Glenn Schaeffer Prize in Modern Letters; the Meridian Energy
Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; the Todd New Writers’ Bursary; the Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing at theUniversity of Canterbury ; and the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship.Chidgey now lives in
Dunedin .See also
*
New Zealand literature
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