Cynthia Banham is a writer, journalist and lawyer.
She is the author of three non-fiction books.
Liberal Democracies and the Torture of their Citizens was based on her PhD. A Certain Light: A Memoir of Family, Loss and Hope, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Non-fiction Book of the Year. Mother Shadow: A Meditation on Maternal Inheritance, will be published by Upswell in April.
She also writes fiction. Her first short story, ‘Swimming With Crocodiles’, was published in the UK literary magazine, Fictionable, and she is currently working on a historical novel.
Cynthia has twice been awarded a Varuna fellowship, most recently the Varuna Climate Fellowship.
She has a Certificate II in Horticulture and believes in the power of life-sustaining wilder gardens to inspire hope and agency in the face of the planet’s climate and biodiversity crisis.
She lives in Sydney with her husband, son, and Labrador, Orla.
