Search results for ""Author Brigitta Olubas""

Cosmopolitan, richly intelligent, beautiful, questing - Shirley Hazzard's writing reflects her life. The acclaim it attracts is immeasurable.Brigitta Olubas tells the story of a girl from the suburbs of Sydney, Australia who fell early under the spell of words and sought out books as her companions. In the process she transformed and indeed created her life. She became a woman of the world who felt injustice keenly and a deep and original thinker, who wrote some of the most beautiful novels - Transit of Venus and The Great Fire among them - and always with an eye to the ways we reveal ourselves to another. 'One of those rare biographies that sends one greedily back to the subject's word, better equipped to appreciate the richness on display'LUCY SCHOLES, Financial Times'Strikingly well-placed and well-proportioned... as befits her subject, Olubas comes with a gift for place and psychology' MICHAEL HOFMANN, Times Literary Supplement'This new account of Hazzard's life should confirm her as one of the 20th century's greatest novelists' CHLOE SCHAMA, Vogue'An impeccably researched and deeply incisive account of Hazzard's life and work, and the intriguing interplay between the two' LILY KING, New York Times

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The authorised biography of Shirley Hazzard, one of the greatest writers in the English language, author of The Transit of Venus and winner of the National Book Award'Lambent, discerning, deeply intelligent and empathetic' Lucy Scholes, Financial Times'Impeccably researched and deeply incisive' Lily King, New York Times'A refined, deeply insightful perspective' Chloe Schama, Vogue'Absorbing, well-crafted... scrupulously researched' KirkusBorn and raised in Sydney Australia, Hazzard lived around the world: in Hong Kong; Wellington, New Zealand; New York; Naples and Capri and her writing -- cosmopolitan, richly intelligent, beautiful, questing -- reflects her life. Her body of work is small but the acclaim it attracts is immeasurable, from among others, Michael Cunningham, Zoe Heller, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Lauren Goff, Hermione Lee, Joan Didion, Richard Ford, Colm Toibin. At sixteen, she was living in Hong Kong with her family and working for the British Combined Services. She later worked, another desk job, for the United Nations in New York and, briefly, in Naples. Italy -- Capri and Naples -- claimed her heart and after she was married -- she was introduced to the biographer, Francis Steegmuller by Muriel Spark -- they divided their time between Italy and America. Drawing on diaries, letters, interviews alongside a close reading of Hazzard's fiction -- Brigitta Olubas, herself Australian -- tells the story of a girl from the suburbs 'with a head full of poetry' who fell early under the spell of words and sought out first books and then people who loved books as her companions. In the process she transformed and indeed created her life. She became a woman of the world who felt injustice keenly, a deep and original thinker, who wrote some of the most beautiful fiction about love and longing, always with an eye to the ways we reveal ourselves to another. This, the definitive biography uncovers the truths and myths and about Shirley Hazzard's life and work, which come together at the point, as Brigitta Olubas observes: 'where the writer lives'.

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Spanning the 1960s to the 2000s, these nonfiction writings showcase Shirley Hazzard's extensive thinking on global politics, international relations, the history and fraught present of Western literary culture, and postwar life in Europe and Asia. They add essential clarity to the themes that dominate her award-winning fiction and expand the intellectual registers in which her writings work. Hazzard writes about her employment at the United Nations and the institution's manifold failings. She shares her personal experience with the aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and the nature of life in late-1940s Hong Kong. She speaks to the decline of the hero as a public figure in Western literature and affirms the ongoing power of fiction to console, inspire, and direct human life, despite-or maybe because of-the world's disheartening realities. Cementing Hazzard's place as one of the twentieth century's sharpest and most versatile thinkers, this collection also encapsulates for readers the critical events defining postwar letters, thought, and politics.

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