Damien Wilkins is one of New Zealand's leading writers, the author of seven novels, including the New Zealand Book Award-winning The Miserables, and The Fainter, which was shortlisted for both the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. In 2013 he became the Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. Wilkins completed his MFA at Washington University and won a Whiting Award in 1992.