Marion Halligan AM (1940-2024) is a novelist, short story writer, reviewer and essayist. Halligan’s third novel, Lovers’ Knots: A Hundred Year Novel (1992) won the Age Book of the Year Award and the Nita Kibble Award. Her novels since include The Fog Garden (2001), The Point (2003), The Apricot Colonel (2006), Murder on the Apricot Coast and Valley of Grace (2009). She has published several collections of short stories including The Living Hothouse (1988), for which she won the Steele Rudd Award, and The Hanged Man in the Garden (1989). She contributed to Canberra Tales (1988) alongside six other Canberra women writers who met regularly to encourage each other during the 1980s and 1990s. Her non-fiction includes The Taste of Memory (2004), a reflection on food and gardens. ‘The point of writing a literary novel is to find out what it is you are writing a novel about’, she says. ‘You must not wait until you know where you are going, either that will never happen or it will make the process very dull.’
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
© Leeanne Crisp
Leeanne Crisp (1 portrait)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Visit us, learn with us, support us or work with us! Here’s a range of information about planning your visit, our history and more!
We depend on your support to keep creating our programs, exhibitions, publications and building the amazing portrait collection!
