Upcoming Guest Speaker
Tuesday May 12th, 2026 -11am to 12noon
Berry Hall, behind the Tramshed, Nth Narrabeen
Our guest speaker for May will be Shankar Chandran.
Shankar Chandran is an Australian Tamil writer, lawyer and leader in the creative community. She is the winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award for her third novel. ‘Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens’, and the author of ‘Song of the Sun God’. ‘The Barrier’, ‘Safe Haven’ and ‘Unfinished Business’. Four of her novels are currently in development as limited series adaptations.
Shankar is currently the Deputy Chair of Writing NSW and a member of the Sweatshop Western Sydney Literacy Movement. Her essays and short stories have been published in critically acclaimed anthologies and journals. She explores dispossession and the creation of community through her fiction.
Shankar has spent two decades working as a lawyer, in an international corporate law firm, supporting the work of civil society organisations.
Shankari Chandran’s well written, complex novel ‘Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens’ is set in both modern-day western Sydney and the Sri Lankan civil war. It is a tale about a diverse group of elderly Australians living in a family-run nursing home in Sydney. The novel has serious heft, spanning several timelines and tackling complex topics like race, trauma, cultures and identities set amidst dislocation and migrations, and the structural inequality engendered in so-called multicultural Australia.
The titular Cinnamon Gardens is a nursing home in Sydney, which was revamped in the 80s by migrant couple Maya and Zakhir after they fled civil war in their home of Sri Lanka. As Tamils and academics, the couple experienced persecution, torture and intimidation, forcing them to leave. Cinnamon Gardens offers a new beginning and the couple transform it into a sanctuary for culturally diverse seniors.
There’s family violence; the tragic loss of a child; torture and displacement; a famous author hiding behind a pseudonym; a political battle for local council; extra-marital affairs; and to top it all off, a terrible and unexpected tragedy.
‘Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens’ requires concentration and full immersion.
