It's hard to believe this biography isn't vintage. An instant classic for lovers of Hazzard's work and for those curious about literary lives.

Having just finished a project where I read Shirley Hazzard's complete work, I was delighted to start on this biography. It was incredible! Brigitta Olubas did a remarkable job at contextualizing Shirley Hazzard, weaving her writing into the work, sharing the history of key figures in her life, and inadvertently helping me curate a massive list of other authors and critics that I want to read after learning about how Shirley and her writer husband knew so many people in the literary world.

Olubas appeared very even-keeled in her portrayal of Shirley Hazzard- impressed by her craft but clear-eyed on her foibles and graces. I learned so much, but recently reading her work helped me stay on top of the references of specific characters, scenes, and locations she included.

Tremendous work!

Although it is obvious that a life was led, Shirley Hazzard's life was to become a writer! There are delights in this story and there are stops as well on her way to making her goals and dreams come true. It is a well-written, well-researched book that will be a great addition to those that read and learn about their craft.

This is a very fine biography, intelligent, insightful and meticulously researched, invaluable in illuminating Shirley Hazzard’s life and work. It is also very detailed and sometimes seems little more than a list of people she met, when and where. Certainly keeping up with Hazzard’s wide and diffuse social circle took some effort, an effort that I didn’t feel I really should have had to make. The author goes into quite extensive biographical detail of these people, and although in the case of Hazzard’s husband Francis Steegmuller this is perhaps justified, it often felt unnecessary. No stone has been left uncovered, and I doubt there is more to learn about Hazzard and her writing. Letters, diaries, notebooks, memories of friends and acquaintances, all are mined to provide a complete portrait. Although she tries to make it a fair and balanced portrait, never trying to obscure Hazzard’s faults, it is obvious that Olubas feels a deep connection to her subject, and she is sometimes overly generous in her approach. Shirley Hazzard doesn’t come out too well, however much her work is acclaimed, and I really don’t think I would have liked her, or even wanted to meet her. However, this definitive authorised biography is an excellent one overall – although I admit it hasn’t tempted me to read the novels.

Biographies about writers are my favorite. I like them even better when I'm not as familiar with the writer because it makes me want to get to know them and to know their work. This is what A WRITING LIFE did for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

3.5 stars

This was a fabulously written, well-researched exploration of the writer's life.

I think writing biographies are difficult as you will have so many different kinds of people interested in the work and so many will say there is not enough of one thing. I came to it as a fan of Hazzard's work but also a fan of writer's biographies with no expectations other than that.

I've loved the Dickinson biography My Wars Are Laid Away in Books and the Jackson biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life. They're both such excellent reads with strong threads and enough balance of analysis and life story that feels exactly right.

This biography won't land in my top writer biographies, but I don't regret reading it. It's real work to reconstruct a life, and this is one I loved learning about.

A meticulously researched biography of a fascinating writer--but SHIRLEY HAZZARD: A WRITING LIFE never quite delivers the powerful prose and surprises of its subject.

Thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for the opportunity of an early read.

This is a detailed journey through the life of Shirley Hazzard. Olubas seems to have left no stone unturned in her documenting process. I have to be honest and say that for me, this was rather dry and too much focussed on the mechanics of Hazzard's life. There are a lot of lists of the people she met and the places she went and of course this all informs her writing life and it is to the author's credit that she uses this close reading of a life to show incidents in Hazzard's work which were semi-autobiographical, but it was a very academic style read. And that's great if, for example you are doing academic work on her and want a deep, meticulously researched dive into these correlations. For me, I wanted something else, which is not the fault of the author in any way.