PODCAST: Susan Wyndham on Elizabeth Harrower and a Life in Literature

PODCAST: Susan Wyndham on Elizabeth Harrower and a Life in Literature

Susan talks to Cheryl about researching her latest book Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower, how her mother’s love of books shaped her own, her career in journalism, and her path to becoming one of Australia’s leading literary editors. Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower is out now.

About the Author

Susan Wyndham is a writer and journalist who has been New York correspondent for The Australian newspaper and literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Her most recent book, co-edited with Brigitta Olubas, is Hazzard and Harrower: The letters. In 2024, she was awarded a National Library of Australia Fellowship to research the life of Elizabeth Harrower.

Publisher details

Elizabeth Harrower: The woman in the watch tower
Author
Susan Wyndham
Publisher
UNSW Press
Genre
Non Fiction
Released
01 October, 2025
ISBN
9781761170195

Synopsis

Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of the most intense, original and highly regarded novels of the twentieth century. Then she abruptly stopped writing in the 1970s and became one of the most puzzling mysteries of Australian literature. Why didn’t she continue? Harrower gave evasive answers to friends and interviewers, and only since her death in 2020 has a deeper search been possible.

In this definitive biography, renowned journalist and writer Susan Wyndham grapples with the elusive Harrower. She immerses us in the author’s tumultuous family, her complex friendships with Patrick White, Christina Stead, Kylie Tennant and Shirley Hazzard, and her timeless probing of the human spirit in five remarkable novels.

Drawing on time spent with Harrower, revealing analysis of her fiction and new research, Wyndham unmasks a literary legend.

Susan Wyndham
About the author

Susan Wyndham

Books by Susan Wyndham

COMMENTS

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. trusteeindex says:

    Early songs are a gentle Geometry Dash way to get into rhythm, and they help players learn the basic time and patterns. In later weeks, though, faster note patterns, more complicated rhythms, and harder game play are added.