New Zealand Writers

ARNOLD, Sandra

Extends and disturbs the frontiers of New Zealand writing.

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ARNOLD, Sandra (1945 - ) is an English-born fiction writer who has lived in New Zealand since 1976. With David Howard she founded the literary magazine Takahe in 1989, and was its fiction editor until 1995. A teacher of English as a Foreign Language at Christchurch Polytechnic, Arnold has lived in the USA, Turkey and Brazil and her writing often reflects this international flavour.

Her first novel, A Distraction of Opposites (1992) is set in an imagined - and rather sinister - world of New Zealand letters. "[F]ull of inventive leaps," writes the Christchurch Star, "...not a comforting tale, but one that challenges and shocks throughout." The Daily Telegraph writes: "Her writing is clean and taut, her characters convincing, her denouement satisfying. This book... extends and disturbs the frontiers of New Zealand writing."

Tomorrow's Empire (2000) is Arnold's second novel. Set in England, Turkey, New Zealand and the USA. "Her ravishing descriptions of Istanbul chart with consummate ease, a culture and society hovering uneasily, as they have done for centuries, between East and West," writes the Christchurch Press .

In addition to her two novels, Sandra Arnold's fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals and has been broadcast on National Radio.

(KC.)