Simone Lazaroo is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n author. Born in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, she migrated with her family to Western Australia as a young child. Her background is Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

n. She lives in Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

 and teaches Creative Writing at Murdoch University

Murdoch University

Murdoch University is a public university based in Perth, Australia. It began operations as the state's second university in 1973, and accepted its first students in 1975...

.

Lazaroo's first novel The World Waiting to be Made won the TAG Hungerford award and was published in 1994. She has won the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards

Western Australian Premier's Book Awards

The Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an award for books, scripts, digital narrative and a People's Choice. Awards are provided by the Government of Western Australia, and the awards process is managed by the State Library of Western Australia...

 for fiction for all three of her published novels, and has been short listed for national and international awards. The World Waiting to be Made was inspired by Lazaroo's own experiences and is about a woman who is searching for belonging in Australia, Singapore and Malacca. It has been translated into French and Mandarin. She has also been shortlisted in the Kiriyama Prize

Kiriyama Prize

The Kiriyama Prize is an international literary award given to books which will encourage greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia...

 in 2000 with Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. He has influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.-Biography:Fuentes was born in...

 and Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje

Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...

. Lazaroo was a regional judge for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize

Commonwealth Writers' Prize

Commonwealth Writers is an initiative by the Commonwealth Foundation to unearth, develop and promote the best new fiction from across the Commonwealth. It's flagship are two literary awards and a website...

in 2004.