Hazzard, Shirley (1931-2016), was an Australian-born novelist and short-story writer. She became known for her fiction that explores politics and society following the end of World War II (1939-1945). Critics have praised the psychological complexity of Hazzard’s characters and her precise, elegant literary style.
Hazzard wrote many stories for The New Yorker magazine throughout her career. Her first published works were short stories in The New Yorker, later collected in Cliffs of Fall and Other Stories (1963). Her first two novels, The Evening of the Holiday (1966) and The Bay of Noon (1970), are both love stories set in modern Italy. Hazzard won international attention with her novel The Transit of Venus (1980). The book follows the personal lives and careers of two Australian sisters who move to England. The story covers several decades and reflects the author’s interest in ideas and politics. Hazzard did not publish another novel until The Great Fire (2003), a complex story of characters trying to reestablish their lives following the disruption of World War II. Unlike her other novels, however, The Great Fire does not allow the central characters to reach a happy ending.
Hazzard was born in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 30, 1931. She worked for British intelligence in Hong Kong in 1947 and 1948 and for the British High Commissioner’s Office in New Zealand from 1949 to 1950. She worked for the United Nations in New York City from 1952 to 1962, settling in New York City. Her experiences at the United Nations inspired the satirical sketches published in People in Glass Houses: Portraits from Organization Life (1967). She also wrote the nonfiction Defeat of an Ideal: A Study of the Self-Destruction of the United Nations (1973) and Countenance of Truth: The United Nations and the Waldheim Case (1990).
Hazzard was married to the American novelist and biographer Francis Steegmuller from 1963 until his death in 1994. They spent part of several years in Italy and wrote five essays about their love of Naples, collected in The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples (2008). Hazzard also wrote a memoir of her friendship with the English author Graham Greene , Graham on Capri (2000). Hazzard died on Dec. 12, 2016. Collected Stories, published in 2020, after her death, includes a combination of previously published and unpublished stories by Hazzard.
