Christos Tsiolkas (b. 1965) is a Melbourne-born writer of Greek descent, whose work deals uncompromisingly with sexuality, identity and politics. His first novel Loaded (1995) was made into the award-winning film Head On (1997), directed by Ana Kokkinos and starring Alex Dimitriades. His third novel Dead Europe (2005) won The Age Fiction Book of the Year. Tsiolkas' non-fiction includes a study of Fred Shepisi's 1976 film The Devil's Playground, the philosophical dialogue Jump Cuts (1996) co-written with Sasha Soldatow, and his literary study On Patrick White (2018). Since 1998, Tsiolkas has also worked as a playwright on plays that have been performed in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra. For his 2008 novel The Slap, a taut drama reflecting the changing cultural face of suburban Australia, he won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal and the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. Both The Slap and Barracuda, published in 2013, were made into acclaimed television series. His 2019 novel Damascus won the 2020 Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction. Tsiolkas has mentored emerging writers, a role he sees as reflecting his own experience; 'I was very fortunate that I had a couple of mentors in my life,' he says.
