Christian Karlson Stead was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1932. Acclaimed both at home and internationally, he has published more that forty volumes of fiction, poetry, memoir and criticism. Stead's numerous prizes and honours include, most recently, the 2009 Prime Minister's Award for Fiction, a 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Award for his Collected Poems, the Sunday Times EPG Private Bank Short Story Award and the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine in 2010. Stead received his country's highest award, the Order of New Zealand, in 2007. C. K. Stead has written 11 novels, the most recent of which - My Name was Judas - was published by Harvill-Secker in 2006, two books of short stories and six volumes of literary criticism. He has brought out two further collections of poetry in New Zealand since the publication of Dog by Arc in 2004 - The Red Tram (2004) and The Black River (February 2007). C. K. Stead was Professor of English at the University of Auckland for 20 years and is a Fellow the Royal Society of Literature. He was awarded a CBE in 1986.