Fiona Kidman

Dame Fiona Judith Kidman DNZM OBE (born 26 March 1940) is a New Zealand novelist, poet, scriptwriter and short story author.

Born in Hawera, Kidman grew up in Northland and worked as a librarian in Rotorua after leaving school. She began her writing career as a freelance journalist in the early 1960s and was mentored by Bruce Mason and William Austin in theatre and radio theatre. Her first of eight novels was published in 1979, and she has also published four short story collections and four collections of poetry. Her work is often concerned with the effects of suburban and provincial lower middle-class life, its morals and its hypocrisies.

Kidman is active in the literary community, serving as the national president of PEN from 1981 to 1983 and as the president of the New Zealand Book Council from 1992-95. In 1988 she founded and ran the Fiona Kidman Creative Writing School, which is now part of Whitireia Community Polytechnic. She was Meridian Energy's Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellow for 2006, and President of Honour of the New Zealand Book Council. Her latest novel, The Captive Wife was runner-up for the Deutz Medal and won the Readers' Choice award at the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

In the 1988 New Year Honours, Kidman was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature

She was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 1998 New Year Honours for services to literature. 2016 her novel The Infinite Air was translated into German and published by Weidle Verlag.

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