Kate Pullinger Biography

Canadian writer, born in Cranbrook in the Rocky Mountains; she briefly attended McGill University before moving to England in 1982. Her first published book, Tiny Lies (1988), was an acclaimed collection of stories which blended comedy and satire with insight into the lives and dreams of single young women. Her first novel, When The Monster Dies (1989), was set in a rundown, contemporary South London milieu; its protagonists, migrants from Britain's former colonies, are examples of the empire striking back in eccentric and subversive ways. Her second novel, Where Does Kissing End? (1992), explores unspoken sexual needs, desires, and fantasies by reworking vampire legends in a post-modern vein. Pullinger collaborated in the novelization of Jane Campion's celebrated film The Piano (1994). Resolutely international in her perspective, and fascinated with travel, escape, and dislocation, she has edited Border Lines (1993), an anthology of original stories by writers such as Janette Turner Hospital, Romesh Gunesekera, Audrey Thomas, and Aamer Hussein. A recent novel, possibly her most complex and ambitious, is The Last Time I Saw Jane (1996).