Hazel Joan Rowley (16 November 1951 – 1 March 2011) was a British-born Australian author and biographer.
Life Born in London, Rowley emigrated with her parents to Adelaide at the age of eight. She studied at the University of Adelaide, graduating with Honours in French and German. Later she acquired a PhD in French. She taught literary studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, before moving to the United States.
Rowley's first published biography, of Australian novelist Christina Stead, was critically acclaimed and won the National Book Council's "Banjo" Award for non-fiction in 1994.Bennie, Angela: Hazel Rowley: Intimate obsessions, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 December 2005. It was shortlisted for the 1993 Colin Roderick Award. Her next biographical work was about the African American writer Richard Wright. Her best-known book, Tête-à-tête (2005), covers the lives of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (de Beauvoir had been the subject of Rowley's PhD thesis). Her last published book is Franklin & Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (2011).Romei, Stephen: Hazel Rowley gravely ill after stroke, The Australian, 28 February 2011.
Rowley suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in New York in February 2011 and died there on 1 March, aged 59.Leeds, Adrian: Inspired by Paris: the Wordsmiths of Our Time , Parler Paris, 2 March 2011.
Legacy The annual Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship was set up in her memory in 2011, with Mary Hoban the inaugural winner in 2012.
Bibliography Christina Stead: A Biography (1994) Richard Wright: The Life and Times (2001) Tête-à-tête: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre (2005) Franklin & Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage (2010)
References
External links Hazel Rowley 1951–2011, The Book Show (ABC Radio National)