Shirley Hazzard, Australian-born American writer, Died at 85

  Writer

Shirley Hazzard was born on January 30, 1931, in Australia, and died on December 12, 2016.

She was an Australian author of fiction and non-fiction.

Shirley held citizenship of the United Kingdom and the United States.

Shirley Hazzard’s 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.

She attended the Queenwood School for Girls in Mosman but left in 1947 to travel through Southeast Asia with her parents.

Hiroshima was Shirley Hazzard first landing.

Shirley Hazzard diplomat father took her to Hong Kong, and then she was “brutally removed by destiny” to New Zealand where her father was Australian Trade Commissioner.

She says of her experience of the East that “I began to feel that people could enjoy life, should enjoy life”.

Shirley Hazzard traveled to Italy in 1956 and worked for a year in Naples.

During 1963, she married the writer Francis Steegmuller, who died in 1994.

As of 2006, she lives in New York City, frequently traveling to her Italian residence in Capri.

Shirley Hazzard passed away at 95 years old.