Neil Sonnekus
Writer
I moved from South Africa to Aotearoa-New Zealand at the ripe young age of 52, and switched from film to prose when my 89-year-old father was murdered. It took me a while to realize that I was just writing films – and music – in another way. I like to think that my prose is both cinematic and musical, and tend to write in a dark, comic vein.
I have made three short films, two in South Africa and one in New Zealand, the latter starring Jonathan Brugh of What We Do in the Shadows. Lasavia has published two of my South African novels and we’re working on getting the first Kiwi one out there this year.
2023 – Son re-launch, Lasavia Publishing
2023 – Shooting the Pacific / Your Eye-D, Please, in preparation at Lasavia Publishing
2022 – Something in Your Eyes/Babele, Lasavia Publishing
2017 – Son, MFBooks, Johannesburg.
2018 – Son was long-listed for the South African Sunday Times Literary Award.
2003 – Won silver for writing and directing the short Down Under, and won platinum for adapting Christopher Hope’s fine comic novella Black Swan for a feature film, at the Houston International Film Festival.