Suneeta Peres da Costa

Suneeta Peres da Costa was born in Sydney, Australia ~ on Gadigal Country of the Eora Nation ~ to parents of Goan heritage. She writes fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry. She also works as an editor, mentor, teacher, occasional literary critic, as well as social policy consultant.

Her most recent book, a novella Saudade (The Giramondo Publishing Company, 2019; Transit Books USA & Canada, 2019), concerns the legacies of Portuguese colonialism and the Goan diaspora in pre-Independence Angola. Saudade was shortlisted for the 2019 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the 2020 Adelaide Festival of Literature Awards and a finalist in the 2020 Tournament of Books (USA). An earlier novel, Homework, was published internationally in the US, UK and Australia by Bloomsbury, translated into German by Rowohlt, and shortlisted for the Nita Dobbie Literary Award. Her plays for stage and radio include, The Art of Straying, Estranged Muse, Water, Fire, Watermark, I am an Island, Angelina’s Song and Children See Everything.

Over the years, Suneeta has worked with the National Gallery of Victoria, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the National Museum of Australia, Sydney Review of Books, Meanjin, Southerly, Peril, Australian Theatre for Young People, Sydney Theatre Company and Belvoir St Theatre, among other organisations. Her honours include awards, fellowships and residencies from the Literature Board of the Australia Council, Asialink Arts, The Copyright Agency, Create NSW, The Corporation of Yaddo, MacDowell, Ian

Reed Foundation, The Bundanon Trust, Varuna – The Writers’ House, the Valparaiso Foundation and the Marten Bequest. She has been a guest of many national and international literary festivals, including Sydney Writers' Festival, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, the Stuttgarter Buchwochen and The Brooklyn Book Festival.

A former Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar, Suneeta completed a Master of Fine Arts in Writing at Sarah Lawrence College, New York. She taught writing for many years at her alma mater, the University of Technology, Sydney where her own teachers included the late Martin Harrison and Glenda Adams.

She is committed to the arts as a vehicle for social and ecological justice, sovereignty, equity and diversity.

For information about writing workshops, mentoring, manuscript assessment, editorial services and other writing, including public policy writing queries, please contact Suneeta here.

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