Owen Marshall has been described as New Zealand’s best short story writer.
Born in Te Kuiti, Owen Marshall was educated at Timaru Boys’ High School and the University of Canterbury where he completed a MA (Hons) in 1964. He is a former Deputy and Acting Rector of Waitaki Boys’ High School, Oamaru, and a former Deputy Principal of Craighead Diocesan School, Timaru.
He published his first book, Supper Waltz Wilson, in 1979, and has since written or edited 15 more, including, The Day Hemingway Died (1982), The Divided World (1989), A Many Coated Man (1995), and The Best of Owen Marshall’s Short Stories (1997).
His novel, Harlequin Rex, published in 1999, won the 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Awards’ Deutz Medal for fiction.
Owen Marshall held the Canterbury University Literary Fellowship in 1981, the Otago University Robert Burns Fellowship in 1992, and the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship in Menton, France, 1996. In the Queen’s New Year Honours 2000, he was awarded ONZM for services to Literature.
Citation authorised as true and correct at April 2002.
