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Image courtesy Reading Australia
Chloe Hooper Chloe Hooper i(A9387 works by)
Born: Established: 1973 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Chloe Hooper grew up in Melbourne. In 1995 she completed an Arts degree at Melbourne University with first class Honours in English and Fine Arts. She has held a solo exhibition of her paintings and has written and performed for theatre.

Hooper's essay 'The Tall Man: Palm Island's Heart of Darkness' (Monthly, March 2006) won the 2006 Walkley Award in the Magazine Feature Writing category.

Exhibitions

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Hooper's English translation of a short story is published in Multiples: 12 Stories In 18 Languages By 61 Authors

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Bedtime Story Cammeray : Simon and Schuster Australia , 2022 23818532 2022 single work autobiography

'Let me tell you a story…

'When Chloe Hooper’s partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she has to find a way to tell their two young sons.

'By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale? Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons children’s literature—with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals—can teach about grief and resilience in real life.

'As she discovers, ‘the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future.’ From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl—all of whom suffered childhood bereavements—she follows the breadcrumbs of the world’s favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives.

'Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling.' (Publication summary)

2023 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
2023 shortlisted National Biography Award
2023 longlisted Booksellers Choice Award BookPeople Book of the Year Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year
2023 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian General Non-Fiction Book of the Year
2023 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Non Fiction Book designed by Alison Colpoys.
2023 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
2023 highly commended Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
y separately published work icon The Arsonist The Arsonist : A Mind on Fire Melbourne : Penguin , 2018 14732249 2018 single work non-fiction crime

'The Arsonist takes readers inside the hunt for a fire-lighter. After Black Saturday, a February 2009 day marked by 47 degree heat and firestorms, arson squad detectives arrived at a plantation on the edge of a 26,000-hectare burn site. Eleven people had just been killed and hundreds made homeless. Here, in the Latrobe Valley, where Victoria’s electricity is generated, and the rates of unemployment, crime and domestic abuse are the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn’t know.

'The Arsonist tells a remarkable detective story, as the police close in on someone they believe to be a cunning offender; and a puzzling psychological story, as defence lawyers seek to understand the motives of a man who, they claimed, was a naïf that had accidentally dropped a cigarette.

'It is the story not only of this fire - how it happened, the people who died, the aftermath for the community - but of fire in this country. What it has done, what it has meant, what it might yet do. Bushfire is one of Australia’s deepest anxieties, never more so than when deliberately lit. Arson, wrote Henry Lawson, expresses a malice ‘terrifying to those who have seen what it is capable of. You never know when you are safe.‘

'As she did in The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper takes us to a part of the country seldom explored, and reveals something buried but essential in our national psyche. The bush, summertime, a smouldering cigarette - none of these will feel the same again.'  (Publication summary)

2019 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
2019 winner Victorian Community History Award Judges’ Special Prize
2019 winner 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature The Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize
2019 longlisted CHASS Australia Prizes Australia Book Prize
2019 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Non-Fiction
2019 shortlisted Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing Best True Crime
2019 shortlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
2019 winner Davitt Award Best True Crime Book
2019 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Non Fiction Book
2019 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian General Non-Fiction Book of the Year
2019 longlisted The Stella Prize
2019 winner Indie Awards Nonfiction
y separately published work icon The Engagement Melbourne : Hamish Hamilton , 2012 Z1881042 2012 single work novel thriller

'Liese Campbell has an engagement for the weekend: to stay with Alexander Colquhoun, the well-mannered heir of a pastoral dynasty, at his property in western Victoria. Liese, an English architect in flight from the financial crisis, now works at her uncle's real-estate business in Melbourne. Alexander has been looking for a place in the city. The luxury apartments Liese shows him have become sets for a relationship that satisfies their fantasies - and helps pay her debts. It's a game. Both players understand the rules. Or so she thinks.

'Across the ancient landscape they drive at dusk to his grand decaying mansion. Here Liese senses a change in Alexander, and realises a different game has begun.

'This gripping, provocative new novel by one of Australia's finest writers is a psychological thriller for the modern age, one which explores the snares of money and love, and the dark side of erotic imagination. A trap has been set, but how and why? And for whom?' (From the publisher's website.)

2013 longlisted Kibble Literary Awards Nita Kibble Literary Award
2013 longlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
Last amended 3 Apr 2019 14:28:46
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