When Hazel Rowley died, the Australian biographer was at the peak of her career, having cemented a reputation for writing richly engaging and throughly researched biographies of figures including Christine Stead, black American writer Richard Wright, and power couples Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre, and Eleanor and Franklin D Roosevelt. 

But how did the Adelaide academic achieve her success?  A new anthology of her writing on biography, Life As Art, by her sister Della Rowley, with an introduction by Drusilla Modjeska provides insights into Hazel’s tenacity.

In this episode, Della Rowley shares  her personal memories of her older sister nd talks about the financial aspect of Hazel’s increasing success, while Drusilla Modjeska remembers her discussions with Hazel about the ethical  boundaries of biography.

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