Shirley Hazzard Biography

Shirley Hazzard was an Australian author of fiction and non-fiction. Her 1970 novel, The Bay of Noon, was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010 and her 2003 novel, The Great Fire won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

Born in Australia, Ms. Hazzard traveled the world during her early years, a result of her parents' diplomatic postings. In 1947, at the age of 16, she was engaged by British intelligence to monitor the civil war in China. In 1963, she married the writer Francis Steegmuller, who died in 1994.

She has also authored The Transit of Venus (1980), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, several non-fiction and short story collections, including a memoir Greene on Capri.

Hazzard lived in New York, making frequent travels to Italy until her death in December 2016.

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