On Shirley Hazzard

On Shirley Hazzard is a vibrant and personal tribute in which the Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Michelle de Kretser offers a masterclass in writing and reading. She celebrates the precision and musicality of Hazzard's prose and illuminates the humor and humanity in her work. This exhilarating book is both a brilliant introduction to Hazzard and a gift for her longtime readers.

On Shirley Hazzard reveals Michelle de Kretser's lively intelligence at work and her distinctive wit. This testament to her sustained engagement with Hazzard's work is, at its core, an appreciation of the significance and joy of good fiction. Receptiveness when reading is a prerequisite for perceptive analysis, according to both de Kretser and Hazzard. And for prose, the "simple and precise," the "transient and insignificant" are key qualities: "Not moonlight but the glitter of broken glass," for de Kretser as for Chekhov. Selective biographical details about Hazzard are relayed, too--her leaving Australia and formal education at the age of sixteen, her working, unhappily, at the United Nations in Manhattan, her long friendship with Graham Greene. Hazzard's morality is also invoked--"solidarity with the vulnerable" and pacifism being of prime importance.

Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016) published her first short story in The New Yorker in 1961. The magazine continued to publish her work in the decades thereafter, including excerpts from her most successful and beloved novel, the bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner, The Transit of Venus (1980). Michelle de Kretser's insightful and provocative appreciation does Hazzard fine justice.

Author: Michelle de Kretser
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 03/10/2020
Pages: 112
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.20h x 4.40w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9781948226820
ISBN10: 1948226820
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Modern | 20th Century
- Literary Collections | Australian & Oceanian
- Literary Collections | American | General