Neil Sonnekus
Writer
I switched from South Africa to New Zealand and film to prose when my 89-year-old father was murdered and realized 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.
Mike Johnson and I are working towards turning his “500-page monster” Driftdead into a TV series.
2017 – Son, MFBooks, Johannesburg.
2019 – Brandy & Coke, in preparation at Lasavia.
2019 – Cities of the Desert (the two novellas Something in Your Eyes and Babele), in preparation at Lasavia
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.