Paul Sunga is the author of Red Dust, Red Sky and The Lions.  This site is about his published and forthcoming books, as well as his international health and teaching profile.   

Sunga was born and schooled in Ottawa, Canada. As a student he travelled extensively in Canada and overseas and worked for a time as a nickel miner in Thompson, Manitoba (The Lions  - Orca Books, 1992).  He began writing and working as a medical researcher immediately after graduating from the University of Ottawa but in 1985 accepted a posting through World University Services of Canada to work in rural Lesotho (Southern Africa).  In Lesotho Sunga taught, worked as journalist during the South African press blackouts, and served as an advisor to the Lesotho Ministry of Health under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. This period provided the material for his second novel, Red Dust, Red Sky (Coteau Books, 2008).

After returning to Canada in the late 1980's Sunga focused once again on medical research with the intention of deepening his efforts in international health. He embarked on doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine and completed his Ph.D. in 1991. At Langara College in Vancouver he designed and led a two-phase, ten year regional health project in Mwanza, Tanzania focusing on community models for disease prevention. The project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), was the recipient of an Award for Excellence by the Minister of International Cooperation in 2002.  Sunga began providing advisory services to CIDA in the mid 1990s and has worked extensively in more than a dozen CIDA focus countries in Africa and Asia.  The complex interplay between health issues, governments and the diverse forms of English language expression around the world, are among the motivations for two current writing projects, The Age of Wealth and Global Health: An Introduction.