Lloyd Jones (New Zealand author)


Lloyd David Jones is a New Zealand author. His novel Mister Pip won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker.

Early life and education

Jones was born in Lower Hutt in 1955, and attended Hutt Valley High School and Victoria University of Wellington. Despite fulfilling the requirements of a political science degree, Jones was initially unable to graduate from university due to library fines owing at the time but he completed his course of study and . He was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Victoria University in May 2009.
Jones's older brother is property investor and former politician Sir Bob Jones.

Literary career

In 1988, Jones was the recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship. In 1994 he curated an exhibition which illustrated the New Zealand Saturday. The work was a collaboration with photographer Bruce Foster and held at the National Library in Wellington. The work was published as The Last Saturday and included historical photographs, contemporary photographs by Foster and an essay by Jones.
In May 2003, a theatrical adaptation of Jones' novel The Book of Fame was presented at Wellington's Downstage Theatre.
In May 2007, Jones won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Overall Best Book Award for his novel Mister Pip. The novel is set during the Bougainville Civil War of the early 1990s in Papua New Guinea. The book was also short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2007.
Jones was the 2007 recipient of the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers' Residency.

Awards and honours