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.

This bio was last updated on 12/14/2016. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's a tough task. So, please help us - if the information about this author is out of date or inaccurate, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and publishers: If you wish to make changes to a bio, send the complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.