‘Central Africa did more to alter my attitudes and prospects than anything before or since.’

Victor Kelleher was born in London, 1939. At fifteen, he relocated to what is now Zambia in Central Africa – a move that would eventually spark his career as a writer. For the next twenty years, he travelled the African continent, studied for a number of degrees, including his doctorate, and taught in various South African universities.

One of many refugees from Apartheid, he took up an academic post in New Zealand in 1973, where he suffered profound homesickness for Africa. It was this sense of dislocation, more than anything else, which prompted him to write – firstly short stories, which drew heavily on the themes and landscapes of his African experience.

Three years later he moved to Australia, to a teaching post at the University of New England in New South Wales. Feeling far more settled, he completed and published his first adult novel, Voices from the River, which was followed by a string of both teenage and adult books. He soon gave up his position as associate professor of literature to write full time.

The vivid details of his prose, the originality of his plots and the diversity of his settings struck a chord with readers young and old. To date, he has written over fifty books, including such much-read titles as Master of the Grove, Papio, Taronga, Wintering, Del-Del, Into the Dark, the Parkland trilogy, and for very young readers, the Gibblewort the Goblin series. Under the pseudonym ‘Veronica Hart’, he has released two horror novels for adults.

Victor’s work has been highly acclaimed, and he has won many awards. These include three Children’s Book Council of Australia awards (one of them for Taronga), the Peace Prize for literature, the Science Fiction Achievement Award, and a host of state awards. An incredibly versatile author, his work spans the genres of literary, dystopian, speculative, and historical fiction, and deals with many rich and thought-provoking themes, from racism and environmental destruction to the ethics and cruelties of animal testing. Together with his artist wife, Alison, he now lives in Sydney where he divides his time between his two great passions – fiction and philosophy of science.