Merlinda Bobis
📷: Mude
Merlinda Bobis is a multi-award-winning Philippine-Australian writer and performer whose work spans fiction, poetry, drama, and academic scholarship. Born in Albay, in the Bikol region of the Philippines, she writes in English, Filipino, and Bikol, drawing from her cultural roots and diasporic experience to create a body of work that bridges Philippine and Australian landscapes with a wider global vision.
She is the author of four novels, two collections of short fiction, six poetry books, and nine dramatic works performed internationally—some incorporating dance, chant, and traditional ritual. Her work explores themes of war and memory, colonisation, migration, ecological loss, women and girls, and the poetics and politics of care.
Her novel Locust Girl: A Lovesong won both the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the Philippine National Book Award in 2016. The Kindness of Birds was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize and the Steele Rudd Award in 2022. She has also received the Gintong Aklat Award, the Most Underrated Book Award, and multiple Philippine National Book Awards. In 2025, she was named one of the top 10 female novelists shaping the literary scene in Southeast Asia.
She completed her BA at Aquinas University of Legazpi, her MA in Literature at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, and her Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong. After teaching English and Literature in the Philippines for a decade, she went on to lecture in creative writing in Australia for 21 years. She is currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer at The Australian National University.
Merlinda Bobis regards her writing as a homecoming: a return to roots, a retrieval through memory, and a reckoning with loss—always with care and grace. She lives and writes on Ngunnawal Country (Canberra). www.merlindabobis.com
Book Awards
The Kindness of Birds: Shortlist, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, NSW Premier’s Literary Award, ACT Book of the Year 2022
Accidents of Composition: Highly Commended, 2018 ACT Book of the Year
Locust Girl. A Lovesong: 2016 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Juan C. Laya Philippine National Book Award for Best Novel in English
Fish-Hair Woman: 2014 Juan C. Laya Philippine National Book Award. 2013 Most Underrated Book Award
Banana Heart Summer: 2006 Gintong Aklat Award (Golden Book Award), Philippines. Shortlist: 2006 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal
White Turtle: 2001 Judges’ Choice Award, Bumbershoot Book Fair, USA. 2000 Steele Rudd Award for the Best Published Collection of Australian Short Stories (Co-winner). 2000 Philippine National Book Award, Fiction (Co-winner)
Summer Was A Fast Train Without Terminals: Shortlist: 1999 The Age Poetry Book of the Year Award
Other Awards & Recognition
2016 Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature (Philippines), Second Prize, Poetry in English for poems from Accidents of Composition
2006 Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas (National Philippine Balagtas Award: lifetime award for author’s poetry and prose in English, Filipino, Bikol)
1998 Prix Italia (International award for radio fiction), 1998 Australian Writers’ Guild Award (AWGIE) for radio play Rita’s Lullaby
1998 Pamana Philippine Presidential Award for achievement in the arts
1998 Out of the Ashes Trans-Tasman Short Story Competition (Co-winner) for short story ‘White Turtle’
1997 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio National’s Books & Writing Short Story Competition for ‘The Tongue’ (‘An Earnest Parable’ in White Turtle)
1995 Ian Reed Foundation Prize for Radio Drama for Rita’s Lullaby
1995 Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, Honourable Mention for Ms. Serena Serenata (one-act play)
1990 Gawad Cultural Centre of the Philippines (Philippine national award for poetry in Filipino) for collection of poems Mula Dulo Hanggang Kanto (From Edge to Corner)
1989 Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, Second Prize, Poetry in Filipino for Lupang di Hinirang: Kuwento at Sikreto (Land not Dearest: Story and Secret)
1987 Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, (Co-winner) First Prize, Poetry in English for Peopleness
Performances
Watch Merlinda Bobis performing her poems in Accidents of Composition and two original dramatic works, which she has performed internationally: River, River adapted from her short story version of Fish-Hair Woman and Cantata of the Warrior Woman Daragang Magayon (her epic poem in Summer Was a Fast Train Without Terminals).
Older Titles
Ebooks
Translations
White Turtle by Merlinda Bobis: Philippines: De La Salle University Press;
USA: The Kissing: Aunt Lute; (rights returned – different title)
Japanese: short story, 'An Earnest Parable', p. 153.
Locust Girl in Tamil. Kalachuvadu Publications Pvt. Ltd, India.
Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis: Philippines: Anvil Publishing;
Spanish: Chile: Mujer Pelo-Pez: JC Sáez.
