Katherine Scholes is an international bestselling author with over two million books sold. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages and includes children’s fiction and non-fiction as well as novels for adults. She has also had a career as a documentary filmmaker.

Katherine was born in Tanzania and seven of her novels are set there, during the independence era of the 1960s. Her father was a travelling doctor, and the family often joined him on camping trips to remote areas where he operated a clinic from his Land Rover. The children swam in rivers or played in the bush while their artist mother painted the landscape. This period of Katherine’s life sparked an abiding fascination with the ‘third space’ occupied by people who have been deeply shaped by more than one culture.

When she was ten, the family moved briefly to England before settling in Tasmania. After graduating from college, Katherine spent a year living on Flinders Island in Bass Strait. She then married filmmaker Roger Scholes and moved to Melbourne. The couple lived there for many years, writing books and making films together, before eventually returning with their two sons to live in Tasmania. Katherine began taking regular trips back to Africa to research her stories, often in the company of members of her family.

Her international bestsellers include The Rain Queen, Make Me An Idol, The Stone Angel, The Hunter's Wife, The Lioness and Congo Dawn. She is particularly popular in Germany and France. Katherine’s first African book, The Rain Queen, is regarded as a cult novel in France and remained on the Der Spiegel bestseller list (Germany) for two years. Other translated editions include Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Norwegian, Italian and Portuguese.

Her book The Stone Angel, set in Tasmania, was longlisted in the Dublin Literary Awards. Make Me An Idol, set partly on Flinders Island, was written with the assistance of a Senior Writer’s Fellowship from the Australia Council and a research grant from Arts Victoria.

She was one of the very first artists to travel to Antarctica as a guest of the Australian Antarctic Division. The novel inspired by her experiences, The Blue Chameleon, won a New South Wales State Literary Award, a Family Book of the Year Award (Australian Psychologist’s Association) and the Variety Club Talking Book of the Year Award. It was translated into several languages.

Her children’s books The Boy and the Whale and The Landing were both shortlisted in the Australian Children’s Junior Book of the Year awards and were published widely in translation. They are still popular in their German editions after more than 35 years. The Boy and the Whale was also a bestseller in Japan. It has been published in many languages including Korean, Spanish, French and German and Dutch.

Her non-fiction title Peacetimes, exploring conflict resolution, was shortlisted for the Jean Piaget International Book Awards, Geneva. It made a lasting impact in Japan where her words are accompanied by the work of the revered photographer Tanuma Takeyoshi. A special edition was published by the Education Department. The book has been translated into several other languages including Farsi and Spanish. It is used as a teaching resource in Quaker and Montessori schools.

In 2015 Katherine became the patron of the Christopher Strong Education Trust, which supports the training of teachers in rural Tanzania. She is currently involved with education projects run by Care for Africa Foundation.

In 2022, Roger Scholes passed away. Katherine continues to write novels, from her office that overlooks the River Derwent near Hobart. Her new book One Night at Silver Lake brings together her two homelands, Tanzania and Tasmania.

Katherine was awarded a Bicentennial Medal for her contribution to Australian society.

She is published by Penguin Random House and represented by Fiona Inglis, Curtis Brown Australia.