Shankari Chandran is an Australian Tamil writer, human rights lawyer and leader in the creative community. She is the winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her third novel, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens and the author of Song of the Sun God, The Barrier, Safe Haven and Unfinished Business. Four of her novels are currently in development as limited series adaptations.

Shankari is currently the Deputy Chair of Writing NSW and a member of the Sweatshop Western Sydney Literacy Movement. Her essays and short stories have been published in critically acclaimed anthologies and journals. She explores dispossession and the creation of community through her fiction.

Shankari has spent two decades working as a lawyer in the social justice field, on national and international program design and delivery. She holds a Bachelor of Laws/Commerce (UNSW, Sydney), having previously led the pro bono legal programs for Allen & Overy (globally) and Ashurst (Australia). She continues her work in social impact for an Australian national retailer. She is based in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband and her four children.

Prizes:

• Chai at Cinnamon Gardens: winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award (2023); highly commended for the Barbara Jefferis Award (2024)
• Safe Haven: shortlisted for Sisters in Crime (2025); shortlisted for Indie Book Awards (2025)
• Song of the Sun God: long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award (2019); runner-up for Sri Lanka’s Fairway National Literary Award (2018)
• The Barrier: short-listed for the Norma K Hemming Award for Speculative Fiction (2018).