Shankari Chandran

Shankari Chandran is an Australian Tamil lawyer and author of Song of the Sun God (Ultimo Press), The Barrier (Pan Macmillan) and Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (Ultimo Press), which won the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Song of the Sun God was long-listed for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award and short-listed for Sri Lanka's Fairway National Literary Award in 2018. The Barrier was short-listed for the 2018 Norma K Hemming Award for Speculative Fiction. Her next novel, Safe Haven (May 2024, Ultimo Press) involves an offshore detention centre, a nun and a dead border force guard. Her thriller, Unfinished Business will be released as an Audible Original in March 2023, featuring her protagonist Ellie Harper (human rights lawyer and ex-CIA agent). This is the first novel in her Ellie Harper series which is in the early stages of development. Song of the Sun God is being adapted for television, starring Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran (no relation, just a quirky coincidence). Shankari’s short stories and essays have been published in critically acclaimed anthologies and journals and she is the deputy chair of Writing NSW. She spent two decades working as a lawyer in the social justice field, on national and international program design and delivery. She continues her work in social impact for an Australian national retailer. She is based in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband and her four children.