Three years apart in age, Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower were both formed as writers by the fact of being Australian-born women.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Biography
Displaying 1 - 20 of 66 articles
A new biography tells the story of Hillsong and its leader Brian Houston. How did Hillsong come to dominate Australian Pentecostalism – and Australian Christianity? What can we learn from its decline?
The book tells the inside story of how they changed the sound of urban pop.
Establishing the facts – and disentangling fact from legend – is not always straightforward when it comes to biography. Frank Moorhouse’s biographer unpacks his process.
Some see Elon Musk as an idiot savant; others think of him simply as an idiot. How did an unelected citizen come to wield such power?
Gabrielle Carey’s last book, about her beloved James Joyce, also includes her own life as a reader, and makes us see things that hurt and delight her.
A psychologist analyses the rugby star’s life to extract lessons.
Donald Horne’s genius was his ability to capture on the page a personal intellectual journey that reflected one the nation was also taking.
Publishers and studios routinely pay large sums to acquire ‘life story rights.’ Two law scholars explain why the phrase is misleading.
The machinations of a young and ambitious media mogul are laid bare in a detailed new biography.
There is never going to be a final assessment of Mandela’s legacy. How it is regarded will continue to change, depending on the destination South Africa travels to.
Anna Funder’s new book, Wifedom, is a meditation on the insidious nature of patriarchy. Funder draws parallels between our #metoo era and the time of George Orwell and his wife Eileen.
‘Literary couples are a plague,’ wrote Elsa Morante, married to Alberto Moravia. They’re one of the couples in this lively exploration of what happens when two writers share loves and lives.
Across her long political career, Tanya Plibersek has learnt to fight for visionary policies, not merely espouse them.
D.H. Lawrence is a writer who provokes adoration or loathing, depending on one’s taste, politics and patience. How reliable is he as a guide to life?
Bob Hawke spent 24 years married to his second wife, Blanche d'Alpuget, whose canny 1981 biography helped make him ALP leader – and one of our most beloved PMs. Chris Wallace tells their story.
A powerful new book restores the writer and feminist politician to her rightful place in history.
A new biography of Jean Rhys, the Dominican-born author of Wide Sargasso Sea, pays close attention to her origins – but stops short of examining the colonial relations that are central to her story.
An exceptionally talented writer, Shirley Hazzard is cherished for her novels The Great Fire and The Transit of Venus. Her life defends the right to be unfashionable and the value of learning.
He is the heir-apparent of a global media empire, but how much to we really know about Lachlan Murdoch?
Top contributors
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Professor of Communication, Deakin University
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Senior Fellow, McCormack Graduate School, UMass Boston
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Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
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Managing Director, Triple Helix Consulting; Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, ANU Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University
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Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University
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Lecturer in Social Inquiry, La Trobe University
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Professorial Fellow in History, The University of Melbourne
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Professor and Associate Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, Queensland University of Technology
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Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
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Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology
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Curator of Scientific Collections, University of Cambridge
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Professor of English, School of the Arts and Media, UNSW Sydney
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Executive Dean (interim) Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra
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Professor of Philosophy, La Trobe University
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Research Associate, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University
