Zana Fraillon

Zana Fraillon (born 1981) is an Australian writer of fiction for children and young adults based in Melbourne, Australia.

Fraillon is known for writing in fiction about human rights abuses and in 2017 she won an Amnesty CILIP Honour for her book The Bone Sparrow which highlights the plight of the Rohingya people. The Bone Sparrow was translated to the stage and premiered in the York Theatre Royal, England, on 25 February 2022.

Biography

Fraillon was born in Melbourne and spent her early childhood in San Francisco. She was an avid reader as a child and grew up surrounded by books. She attributes a vision problem that was not diagnosed until she was seven as the reason she was more focused on books than the world around her. Fraillon studied history, spent a year teaching in China and returned to Melbourne to study and work as a teacher. She is from a family of writers and began writing fun picture books with her son. A friend encouraged her to submit these to a publisher and her writing career was born.