Giovanna (Gigi) Fenster (born 1963/64) is a South African-born New Zealand author, creative writing teacher, and law lecturer.

[3] After having two children, her concerns about raising them in a society with high levels of violence prompted her to move in 2001 to Wellington, New Zealand, where she became a legal policy analyst at the Commerce Commission.

[1][7][4] Fenster's writing career began with the encouragement of her younger sister, novelist Rahla Xenopoulos, who had just published her first book.

[11] As a portrait of a troubled, obsessed mind, Fenster said she wanted readers to feel "worried, anxious, incredibly tense…to both dread and look forward to the end.

"[2] In March 2022 A Good Winter was one of four novels shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and convenor of judges Rob Kidd described it as "an unnerving and absorbing reading experience as the darkness closes in.