Brian Castro

Brian Castro

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Brian Castro was educated at the University of Sydney and has worked in Australian, French and Hong Kong universities as a teacher and writer. He is the author of eleven novels and a volume of essays on writing and culture. His novels have won a number of state and national prizes including the Australian/Vogel literary award, The Age Fiction Prize, the National Book Council Prize for Fiction, four Victorian Premier's awards, two NSW Premier's awards and the Queensland Premier's Award for Fiction. He has delivered keynote addresses at major conferences in Shanghai, Vienna, Paris, Toulouse, Hong Kong and Kyoto. He has been a Literature Board member on the Australia Council. For many years he was the literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine. In 2005 he held the position of Macgeorge Fellow at the University of Melbourne. In 2007-8 he was the Professorial Research Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. He is currently Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide and is a member of the management committee of the J.M. Coetzee centre for Creative Practice, a centre for cross-disciplinary linkages and research into creativity. Castro was the 2014 recipient of the Patrick White Award for Literature and the 2018 Prime Minister's Prize for Poetry.

His research interests include melancholia and creativity, Oulipo and diasporic literatures.

  • Appointments

    Date Position Institution name
    2008 - ongoing PROFESSOR University of Adelaide
    2006 - 2008 PROFESSOR University of Melbourne
    2005 - 2005 RESEARCH FELLOW University of Melbourne
    1995 - 1995 WRITER IN RESIDENCE Australian National University
    1994 - 1995 WRITER IN RESIDENCE University of Hong Kong
  • Awards and Achievements

    Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount
    2018 Award Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry 2018 Prime Minister's Department Australia $80,000
    2014 Award 2014 Patrick White Award for Literature Patrick White Estate Australia $24,000
    2006 Award Queensland Premier’s Award for fiction Qld Premier's Department Australia -
    2004 Award NSW Premier’s Award for fiction; book of the year NSW Premier's Department Australia -
    2003 Award Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction (Vance Palmer Prize) Victorian Premier's Department Australia -
    1997 Award National Book Council ‘Banjo’ Prize for Fiction National Book Council Australia -
    1993 Award Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction (Vance Palmer Prize) Victorian Premier's Department Australia -
    1992 Award Victorian Premier's Award for Fiction (Vance Palmer Prize)+Victorian Premier's Award for Innovative Writing Victorian Premier's Department Australia -
    1991 Award The Age Fiction Prize The Age Newspaper Australia -
    1982 Award The Australian/Vogel Literary Award The Australian newspaper; Vogel prize Australia -
  • Language Competencies

    Language Competency
    Chinese (Cantonese) Can speak and understand spoken
    English Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review
    French Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review
  • Education

    Date Institution name Country Title
    1973 - 1976 University of Sydney Australia M.A.
    1968 - 1971 University of Sydney Australia B.A. Dip. Ed.
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2018 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Volume 1: The Lining of the Heart
    Volume 2: Encounters with Visual Art through Creative Writing: Sketching as a Methodology, Unconscious Scanning and Characterisation through Ekphrasis
    Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Stephen William Abram
    2017 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Mobile Lives
    'The Expatriates: Short Stories' and
    'The Possibilities of Expatriate Fiction: Exegesis'
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Joanne Nicole Lennan
    2016 - 2019 Co-Supervisor Postulating the Personal in Abstract Art through Poetry: the Development and Implementation of an Abstract Ekphrasis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Dominic Alexander Symes
    2016 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Confronting the Dark: Representations of Death in Australian Fiction and 'The Art of Dying' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Karen Maree Rees
    2016 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Lawson, Stow, Prescott and the Mythos of the Outback Town Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Peter Hugh Court
    2015 - 2019 Co-Supervisor Disabling Poetics: Bodily Otherness and the Saying of Poetry Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Andrew Jackson
    2015 - 2018 Principal Supervisor Volume 1: Belly of the Beast
    Volume 2: The Road to Nowhere: Myths of Homeland and Expulsion in Australian Road Stories
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Liz Allan
    2015 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Me, Myself and the Other: Self-reflexivity in Travel Writing Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Tina Morganella
    2015 - 2017 Principal Supervisor In the Garden Where We've Been Planted Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Dr Henry Walter Prunckun
    2015 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Volume 1: My Killer Secret
    Volume 2: 'Literary' Crime Fiction - an Analysis
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Phillipa Deanne Martin
    2014 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Volume One: Cooperation Volume Two: Portraying The Other in Salaryman Novels and How Their Identities are Constructed Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Ying Xuan Chuang
    2014 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Volume 1 Dignity of Boundary "Jack London Slept Here (A Novel)
    Volume 2 Dignity of Boundary "Foregrounding Dialogue: An Ethical Approach through Courageous Risk" (An Exegesis)
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Robert Meldrum Sedlack
    2014 - 2017 Co-Supervisor Silence, Shamans and Traumatic Haunting: A Novel and Accompanying Exegesis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Matthew James Hooton
    2013 - 2015 Co-Supervisor Rewriting Urban Narratives of the Australian Great Depression Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Helen Catherine Dinmore
    2013 - 2016 Principal Supervisor One Sunday in Picardy/ The Olfactory Shift in the Literature of the First World War: The Reawakening of Smell Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Eleanor Ahern
    2012 - 2017 Principal Supervisor This Old Man and An Act of Reading and Writing. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Jonathan Mark Zweck
    2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Kathryn Koromilas
    2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor The Untellable Story / Twice Upon a Time: Starting Over After the Apocalypse Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Tim Sinclair
    2011 - 2014 Principal Supervisor The Forked Road of Narrative in the Hero's Journey Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Con Anemogiannis
    2011 - 2015 Co-Supervisor Point of View in a Divided Society:
    "The Parts"
    "Putting 'The Parts' Together"
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Mary Lynn Mather
    2011 - 2014 Principal Supervisor The Transformation of Expatriates Through Turning to the Foreign - Volume 1 The Memoir: Bound: An Expatriate's Journey to China and Beyond. Volume 2 The Exegesis: Xenotropism and the Awakening of Literary Expatriatism Through Writing Memoir. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Christine Robyn Velde
    2010 - 2014 Co-Supervisor The Cotton Is High & Of the Earth: Writing The Cotton Is High Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Bryan Whalen
    2010 - 2016 Co-Supervisor Volume 1 The Sixth Creek Volume 2 The Sixth Creek: The Home as Habitat - Writing and Protecting the Local Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Rachael Mead
    2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Cloud Village/Ethnographic Surrealism and the New World Baroque Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Leila Susan Binder
    2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Standing in the Plaza: Problematic Place in the Short Story Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Sally Sian Lily Fermer
    2009 - 2015 Principal Supervisor Unintelligible: A Memoir of Unassumable Inheritance
    Volume 1 Creative work
    Volume 2 Exegesis After-words: Postmemory and writing perpetration
    Master of Arts Master Part Time Dr Anna Szorenyi
    2009 - 2014 Co-Supervisor Ephemeron: Volume 1 Creative works Volume 2 Exegesis Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Emma Carmody
    2009 - 2012 Principal Supervisor Here Where We Live The Evolution of Contemporary White Australian Writers Response to White Settler Status Master of Arts Master Full Time Ms Catherine Mary Flanagan Willanski
    2009 - 2013 Principal Supervisor She Wore Pants Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Martina Newhook
    2009 - 2014 Principal Supervisor The Writer as Mapmaker - Volume One: The Journeyman Years - Volume Two: Mapping a Postmodern World Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Benjamin Alexander Crisp
    2009 - 2011 Principal Supervisor Desire and Its Disastrous Results: Re-Examining Morality and Ambivalence in the Literature of Feminine Masochism Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Maya Linden
    2009 - 2009 Co-Supervisor The Museum of Paper and Wires: Reading and Writing Refugee Fiction Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Sonja Dechian
    2009 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Pet Names. Connection and identity in second-person fiction. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Lauren May Lovett
    2009 - 2012 Co-Supervisor Novel: "The 89th Temple" and Exegesis: "From the Inside Out: Narrative Empathy in the Novel `The 89th Temple'" Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Charles Canning
    2008 - 2011 Co-Supervisor Autoplagiarist: An Exegesis of the Novel Ilustrado Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Miguel Syjuco
    2008 - 2013 Principal Supervisor The Skin of a Writer:
    Volume One: Winsome of Rangoon , a Novel
    Volume Two: Representing Anglo-Burmese Subjectivity
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Michelle Diane Aung Thin
    2008 - 2013 Principal Supervisor The 'Murdering Twinmaker' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Sean Llewellyn Williams
    2008 - 2011 Principal Supervisor Corpus: Fictional 'Exposures' and Writing 'Trauma' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Shannon Burns
    2008 - 2011 Principal Supervisor The Process and Importance of Writing Aboriginal Fiction for Young Adult Readers Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Jared Thomas
    2008 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Three Drops of Blood: Fairy Tales and Their Significance for Constructed Families Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Carol Lefevre
    2008 - 2009 Co-Supervisor Form in Fiction: The Development of 'I Dream of Magda' Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Stefan Lashchuk
    2008 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Peering Into Cracks and Crevices: Writing Cross-Cultural Historical Fiction' and 'The Yellow Papers Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Dominique Wilson
  • Committee Memberships

    Date Role Committee Institution Country
    2010 - 2015 Advisory Board Member Adelaide Writers' Week - Australia
    2010 - 2012 Advisory Board Member Asialink Myer Foundation Australia
  • Editorial Boards

    Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country
    2016 - ongoing Board Member Sydney Review of Books University of Western Sydney Australia
    2007 - ongoing Consulting Editor Transtext(e)s/Transcultures L'university de Lyon 3 France

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