Australian writer Christos Tsioklas was BOTD in 1965. Born in Melbourne to Greek immigrant parents, he was the first of his family to attend university, where he edited the influential student newspaper Farrago. He exploded into literary stardom with his 1995 debut novel Loaded, the 24-hour odyssey of angst-ridden queer Greek-Australian man, featuring Olympian levels of drug-taking and anonymous sex. Christos was praised for his subverting of the coming-out narrative and his complicated presentation of racism and sexual politics. Loaded was adapted into the 1996 film Head On, directed by Ana Kokkinos and making a star of its gorgeous young leading man Alex Dimitriades. Tsioklas is best known for his 2008 novel The Slap, following the fallout between a group of friends after an irritated alpha-male slaps a friend’s three year-old child at a barbeque. The Slap became an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, winning the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and was was successfully adapted for television. His 2013 novel Barracuda, a harrowing account of a gay Greek-Australian teenager whose promising career as a competitive swimmer is destroyed, was also adapted for television. His recent works include Damascus, a portrait of the life of Christian saint Paul of Tarsus as a repressed and self-loathing gay man, and 7 ½, an autobiographical portrait about a middle-aged gay novelist. Tsioklas lives in Melboune with his long-term partner Wayne van der Stelt.