Author Interview: Cristina Sanders
We chat to Cristina Sanders about her new novel, Ōkiwi Brown.
Bestselling author of Jerningham and Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant, Cristina Sanders has a new historical fiction novel out called Ōkiwi Brown.
The novel is a vivid imagining of a possible past, but is firmly rooted in historical fact. The novel moves from Edinburgh of 1828, and the infamous body snatchers Burke and Hare, to early colonial New Zealand where a mysterious whaler washes up on the shores of Port Nicholson, sets up a pub and calls himself Ōkiwi Brown. He has a brutal and nasty reputation and when a body washes up, there are suggestions of murder. Are these two events connected in any fashion?
Photo: Karl Mooyman. All rights reserved.
Cristina Sanders grew up in Wellington, where her family owned the Gateway Bookshop and, unsurprisingly, she has been a keen reader from a very early age. Her books are informed by her self-confessed obsession with geography and New Zealand colonial history.
Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant was a finalist for the 2023 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and Displaced was shortlisted for the NZ Book Awards for Children, after winning the Storylines Tessa Duder Award in 2020. Jerningham was shortlisted for the 2020 NZ Heritage Awards.
Cristina is also an enthusiastic sailor and a volunteer crew member of the youth training ship Spirit of New Zealand, where the sailing and the sailors keep her well supplied with yarns.
We were thrilled when Christina took time out from her very busy schedule to discuss Ōkiwi Brown, and we wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to her. For more information, visit Cuba Press.
This interview was done in conjunction with Caffeine and Aspirin, the arts and entertainment review show on Radioactive FM. It was conducted by host Tanya Ashcroft.
You can hear the interview and borrow Ōkiwi Brown, along with Cristina Sanders' other titles, by following the links below.