About the author:
Roanna Gonsalves is the award-winning author of the acclaimed collection of short fiction The Permanent Resident published in India as Sunita De Souza Goes To Sydney. Her writing has been compared to the work of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri. Her four-part radio series On the tip of a billion tongues, commissioned and broadcast by ABC RN’s Earshot program, is an acerbic portrayal of contemporary India through its multilingual writers. She works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UNSW Sydney.
Website: Roanna Gonsalves

About the book:
Roanna Gonsalves short story collection has appeared in two editions. 
1) As Permanent Resident with University of Western Australia Publishing (Australia) 
ISBN: 9781742589022 
280 pages
Publisher's website: Western Australia Publishing
2) And as Sunita de Souza Goes to Sydney with Speaking Tiger (India) 
ISBN: 9789387693104 
296 pages
Publisher's website: Speaking Tiger

Book content:
A woman who can’t swim wades into a suburban pool. An Indian family sits down to an Australian Christmas dinner. A single mother’s offer to coach her son’s soccer team leads to an unexpected encounter. A recent migrant considers taking the fall for a second generation ‘friend’. A wife refuses to let her husband look at her phone. An international student gets off a train at night.
Roanna Gonsalves’ short stories unearth the aspirations, ambivalence and guilt laced through the lives of 21st century immigrants, steering through clashes of cultures, trials of faith, and squalls of racism. Sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes playful, they cut to the truth of what it means to be a modern outsider. Since its publication, Sunita De Souza Goes to Sydney has quickly found a place on a number of lists of must-read books, and has been praised by critics for its playfulness with language, its boldness and its fresh voice.
Reviews 

Translator Dr Rebecca DeWald presented the book in our pitching session on 3 March 2022.
Roanna Gonsalves brings a warmth and energy to the topic of (forced and chosen) migration that is both enlightening and heart-wrenching. The protagonists of her short stories are all Indian migrants (from the Catholic provinces of Bombay and Goa) to Australia, and more often than not women finding their way, and strength, in their new lives abroad. While this may sound like a narrowly defined group to the outside (white, European or American) reader, Gonsalves gives a voice (or, rather, multiple, varied voices) to a sub-group of migrants to Australia that are all-too-easily lumped together into one seemingly homogenous “migrant experience”. We warm to her characters, and the subtle and fragile bonds they form with their fellow humans – and are just as shocked by their betrayal of each other, and touched when they find love in the most hopeless of situations. Over all of this looms the ever-present holy grail of “permanent residency”, the carrot dangled in front of new arrivals; a bureaucratic set of rules influencing their life choices and decisions and curtailing their freedom.

For further information please contact:

Dr Rebecca DeWald
On this website
E-Mail: [email protected]
Dr Rebecca DeWald
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: rebeccadewaldtranslation.wordpress.com/
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Please note: Translation Fund for Literature by the Australian Government
International publishers may apply for a contribution towards the translation of Australian works by living authors of creative writing such as fiction, poetry, writing for children and young people, graphic novels, and narrative non-fiction (defined as autobiography, biography, essays, histories, literary criticism, or analytical prose).  The majority of funding must be used to pay the rights holder and translator.

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