<p>Marion Molteno’s fiction reflects the breadth of her life experience. She grew up in South Africa at a time of political conflict, spent eight years in Zambia, pioneered educational projects in multi-ethnic communities in Britain, and has worked for Save the Children across Asia and Africa.</p>
<p>Her novel <em>If you can walk, you can dance</em> was awarded the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the best book in the Africa region and was selected for the top 20 books in the Women’s Writers Festival in New Zealand. <em>A Shield of Coolest Air</em>, set among Somali asylum seekers, won the David St John Thomas Award for fiction. <em>Somewhere More Simple</em> explores tensions in an island community off the coast of Cornwall. She has won prizes for her short stories, and her collection, <em>A Language in Common</em>, has been translated into five languages. She has written and lectured on language, education and international development, and edits the work of Ralph Russell on Urdu literature.</p>
