Fiona Sussman

Fiona Sussman is a New Zealand-based award-winning author, short-story writer, and a former family doctor. Her novel Addressed to Greta (2020) won the NZ Booklovers' Best Adult Fiction Prize, and The Doctor's Wife (2022) was named one of the best 100 books of the year by the New Zealand Listener.

Fiona Sussman was born in Johannesburg. Her father was a publisher at Heinemann, and she began writing at an early age. After school, she completed a BA in English Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand.

The death of her father from stomach cancer led her to study medicine. She moved to New Zealand in 1989 and earned her medical degree. Her early life in South Africa during apartheid influenced her writing.

Sussman became a full-time writer in 2003. She earned a Master's in creative writing from Auckland University of Technology in 2009.

Her debut novel, Shifting Colours, came out in 2014. Later, it was released in the USA in October 2015 as Another Woman's Daughter.

Her latest work, In Sickness and In Health, came out in 2024. It was a finalist for The Ngaio Marsh Best Crime Novel in 2023. It was also shortlisted for the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Adult Fiction. In the novel, Stan Andino deals with life after discovering that his wife is suffering from a brain tumor. There is a mystery surrounding the death of the wife of a doctor in this story.

Fiona Sussman writes, mentors, and speaks at events. Sussman also helps her husband run a charitable surgical service in Auckland.

Photo credit: www.fionasussman.co.nz