Maurice Gee is a distinguished New Zealand fiction writer. He has received numerous awards, nominations and grants for both his adult fiction and his young adult and children’s books, and was bestowed the prestigious Icon Award in 2003 by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. His short stories and novels are characterised by their real or imaginatively-reworked local settings, dysfunctional families and sketches of violence. Gee’s numerous publications and his wide readership have contributed to his reputation as one of New Zealand’s most significant writers of fiction. Photo and bio courtesy of Read NZ.