Roanna Gonsalves

Roanna Gonsalves is the author of The Permanent Resident (UWAP) published in India and South Asia as Sunita De Souza Goes To Sydney (Speaking Tiger).  She was born and brought up in Mumbai, India. She attended St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and came to Australia in 1998 as an international student. The Permanent Resident won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award Multicultural Prize 2018, and was longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award 2018.  Her writing has been compared to the work of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Roanna is a recipient of the Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Endeavour Award, and is co-founder co-editor of Southern Crossings. She has a PhD (UNSW), has been an invited Keynote Speaker and panelist at numerous literary events. Her screen credits include working as a director, scriptwriter and script consultant for documentary, drama, corporate and commercial projects. She has been teaching, supervising and mentoring emerging prose writers and screenwriters within communities, schools, literary organizations and institutions such as New York University Sydney, UNSW, Western Sydney University, Macquarie University and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She is a recipient of grants through the Australia Council for the Arts, is a recipient of fellowships and residencies at Varuna and Bundanon, was the UNSW – Copyright Agency Writer-in-Residence 2018 and received The Bridge Awards’ inaugural Varuna – Cove Park Writing Residency 2019 (Scotland). She served on the Board of Writing NSW (2018-2023). She works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW, Sydney.

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