King, Rachael

IN BRIEF

Rachael King is a novelist and short story writer. She gained a Masters in Creative Writing from Victoria University in 2001 and has worked in television and radio. Her first novel, The Sound of Butterflies, has been published in nine countries, including Greece and Russia. It won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.


Profile

Place of residence: Wellington, New Zealand
Primary publisher: Random House NZ
Rights enquiries: Vivien Green, Sheil Land Associates: vgreen@sheilland.co.uk
Publicity enquiries: c/- Random House NZ, contact details as above

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KING, Rachael (1970 – ) is a novelist and short story writer. Born in Hamilton, King was educated at the University of Auckland and gained a Masters in Creative Writing from Victoria University in 2001. She has worked as a researcher for television, a radio presenter and in advertisement sales for magazines. She also spent ten years playing bass guitar for a number of Flying Nun bands.

King has had a number of short stories published in anthologies, including, ‘Cold Hands’ in Home: New Short Short Stories by New Zealand Writers (Random House, 2005) and ‘Next Stop Antarctica’, in Creative Juices (HarperCollins, 2002).

Her first novel, The Sound of Butterflies (Black Swan, 2006), tells the story of Thomas, a 19th century naturalist, who after collecting butterflies in the Brazilian rainforests, arrives home scarred and withdrawn, refusing to speak to his wife Sophie about what happened. Reviewing the novel in NZ Listener (July 29, 2006), Caren Wilton commented that: ‘There’s a potent array of material here: a love story, exotic settings, sex, travel, colonialism, some disturbing scenes of abasement and brutality, and, at the heart of the book, the mystery of Thomas’s silence. Tension builds and as the novel goes on, King’s narrative is well paced.’

The Sound of Butterflies has been published the UK and the US and translated into seven other languages, including Greek and Russian. It won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction at 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Dr Paul Millar, convenor of the judging panel, said that 'Rachael King’s strength is her rich, lush and sensuous prose; she has a forte for depicting characters we feel compelled to empathise with'.

King won the 2006 Lilian Ida Smith Award, and was the 2008 Ursula Bethell writer in residence at Canterbury University.

Rachael King lives in Wellington, where she juggles writing with raising her child.

Back to top




Media links and clips

Back to top

Phone 0064 4 499 1569
Level 7, Alan Burns Insurances House, 69 Boulcott Street
Wellington 6011, New Zealand