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Kristina Olsson Kristina Olsson i(A1913 works by) (a.k.a. Kris Olsson)
Born: Established: 1956 ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Journalist, writer and teacher of creative writing, Olsson has worked for the Australian, the Courier Mail, the Sunday Mail; as a media advisor to government and as a teacher of creative writing at two universities. She has also been published widely as a freelance feature and travel writer. She was the Queensland Writer's Centre inaugural tutor for its Year of the Novel workshop series in 2005. Olsson has a Masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland. She has been secretary of the Sisters Inside management committee.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2018 winner Johnno Award
2017 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Literature Board Fellowship Literature Arts Projects For Individuals and Groups $50,000.00
2014 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Fiction

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Shell : A Novel Cammeray : Scribner , 2018 13998429 2018 single work novel war literature

'In this spellbinding and poignant historical novel--perfect for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Flamethrowers--a Swedish glassmaker and a fiercely independent Australian journalist are thrown together amidst the turmoil of the 1960s and the dawning of a new modern era.

'1965: As the United States becomes further embroiled in the Vietnam War, the ripple effects are far-reaching--even to the other side of the world. In Australia, a national military draft has been announced and Pearl Keogh, a headstrong and ambitious newspaper reporter, has put her job in jeopardy to become involved in the anti-war movement. Desperate to locate her two runaway brothers before they're called to serve, Pearl is also hiding a secret shame--the guilt she feels for not doing more for her younger siblings after their mother's untimely death.

'Newly arrived from Sweden, Axel Lindquist is set to work as a sculptor on the besieged Sydney Opera House. After a childhood in Europe, where the shadow of WWII loomed large, he seeks to reinvent himself in this utterly foreign landscape, and finds artistic inspiration--and salvation--in the monument to modernity that is being constructed on Sydney's Harbor. But as the nation hurtles towards yet another war, Jørn Utzon, the Opera House's controversial architect, is nowhere to be found--and Axel fears that the past he has tried to outrun may be catching up with him.

'As the seas of change swirl around them, Pearl and Axel's lives orbit each other and collide in this sweeping novel of art and culture, love and destiny"--'(Publication summary)

2020 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2019 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
2019 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2019 shortlisted Indie Awards Fiction
y separately published work icon Boy, Lost : A Family Memoir St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2013 Z1923431 2013 single work biography (taught in 2 units)

'Kristina Olsson's mother lost her infant son, Peter, when he was snatched from her arms as she boarded a train in the hot summer of 1950. She was young and frightened, trying to escape a brutal marriage, but despite the violence and cruelty she'd endured, she was not prepared for this final blow, this breathtaking punishment. Yvonne would not see her son again for nearly 40 years.

'Kristina was the first child of her mother's subsequent, much gentler marriage and, like her siblings, grew up unaware of the reasons behind her mother's sorrow, though Peter's absence resounded through the family, marking each one. Yvonne dreamt of her son by day and by night, while Peter grew up a thousand miles and a lifetime away, dreaming of his missing mother.

'Boy, Lost tells how their lives proceeded from that shattering moment, the grief and shame that stalked them, what they lost and what they salvaged. But it is also the story of a family, the cascade of grief and guilt through generations, and the endurance of memory and faith.' (Publisher's blurb)

2014 winner Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Non-Fiction
2014 winner Kibble Literary Awards Nita Kibble Literary Award
2014 joint winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction With Michael Fullilove's Rendezvous with Destiny.
2014 shortlisted The Stella Prize
2014 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Non-Fiction
2013 shortlisted Human Rights Awards Literature Non-Fiction Award
2013 winner Queensland Literary Awards Non-Fiction Book Award
2013 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
y separately published work icon The China Garden St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2009 Z1559414 2009 single work novel

'The China Garden follows three protagonists over a 2-week period that culminates in a shocking event that affects them all. Fifty-year-old Laura has come home from Italy to bury her mother Angela and get her affairs in order. However, she has an unexpected surprise waiting for her. Until Angela's death, Laura had believed she was an only child, but the will has made allowance for a brother she had never known, adopted out at birth. In another part of town, 70-year-old Cress is grieving the loss, not only of Angela, but of her own faith. She consoles herself with irregular thefts from the op shop where she volunteers: an old wedding dress, a silver fork, small pictures of the Virgin Mary. Somewhere among these things, she knows, she will relocate faith, she will fend off fear. Kieran, the watcher, sees them both. Kieran is a gatherer of information, a 30-year-old quiz show addict who failed junior school but is good at other kinds of knowing; who knits his world together with cunningly garnered facts and lovingly stored information. As the tragic event looms, it pierces and links the lives of the three characters. The China Garden explores identity in mid-century and mid-life; examining the effects of social policies in a country struggling to re-establish a facade of goodness and morality after a major world war. It shows how the events of mid-life, the death of parents, the confrontation with lost faith or the fruits of youthful mistakes might unravel the various versions of ourselves that we construct in order to survive.' Source: Provided by publisher.

2011 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2010 shortlisted Kibble Literary Awards Nita Kibble Literary Award
2010 winner Barbara Jefferis Award
Last amended 30 Sep 2019 16:52:03
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