Patrick Holland

Patrick Gordon Holland is an Australian novelist and short story writer who has won several literary awards for his works about Australian bushrangers and Asian culture.

Holland grew up in outback Australia working as a horseman for local station owners. He later moved to Brisbane, Queensland, where he attained his PhD at Queensland University of Technology, researching non-place, sacred place and Japanese religio-aesthetics.

Holland is an assistant professor of humanities and creative writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association and was a judge of the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Holland's writing is influenced by Greek Orthodoxy, to which he converted, and his experiences working in Asia and outback Australia. He has described his writing style as minimalist, and also 'ambient' with reference to Japanese literature, in particular the works of Yasunari Kawabata and Yuki Kurita.