Malla Nunn is a highly acclaimed author, best known for her "Detective Emmanuel Cooper" series of novels. She was born in Swaziland and moved to Australia with her family when she was eleven years old. Nunn's parents had led her to believe that they were moving for better job opportunities, but as she and her siblings grew older, they realized that the poverty in Swaziland had left them with limited possibilities for development. As mixed-race individuals in a racist country, they were stuck between black and white, facing discrimination from both sides. To ensure a better future for his children, Nunn's father moved the family to Perth, where he had secured a job at a Baptist school.
Nunn later attended university in Western Australia and the United States. While in New York, she worked on film sets and wrote her first screenplay. It was there that she met her American husband. Upon returning to Australia, Nunn began writing and directing short films and corporate videos. Her films, including "Fade to White," "Sweetbreeze," and "Servant of the Ancestors," have won numerous awards and been shown at international film festivals. Nunn's debut novel, "A Beautiful Place to Die" (2008), was published internationally and won the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel by an Australian female author. She currently resides in Sydney with her husband and two children.