Emily Perkins (novelist)


Emily Justine Perkins is a New Zealand author.

Writing career

Perkins first won attention in 1996 with her first collection of stories, Not Her Real Name and Other Stories.
Perkins' novels are Leave Before You Go, The New Girl, Novel About My Wife, and The Forrests.
A longtime resident of London, Perkins lived in Auckland where she was employed by both The University of Auckland as a creative writing tutor and AUT University as a lecturer. She now lives in Wellington, where she is a senior lecturer at the Victoria University of Wellington International Institute of Modern Letters.

Awards

Not Her Real Name and Other Stories was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Award and won the Best First Book Award. Subsequently, it also won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
Novel About My Wife won the 2009 Montana Book Awards and the Believer Book Award.
The Forrests was tipped by the Hay Festival to win the 2012 Man Booker Prize, but failed to reach the long list.
Perkins was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours, for services to literature.

Publications