Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville AO (b. 1950), novelist, studied in Sydney and worked as a film editor before spending several years in the UK and Europe, where she began to write. After completing an MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, she returned to Australia in 1983 and worked at SBS Television's subtitling unit. In 1984 she published the collection of stories Bearded Ladies. Her novels Lilian's Story (1985) – which won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award – and Dreamhouse (1986) were both made into Australian feature films in the 1990s. The Idea of Perfection (2000) won the Orange Prize, a prominent British award for the best book by a woman, in 2001. A few years later, her international bestseller The Secret River (2005), based on her great-great-great-grandfather's life, won many prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and the Christina Stead Prize. It was adapted for the stage by the Sydney Theatre Company in 2013 and made into a 2015 ABC television series. Her other novels include Dark Places (1994), The Lieutenant (2008), Sarah Thornhill (2011) – the sequel to The Secret River – and A Room Made of Leaves (2020). In 2015 she wrote a memoir One Life: My Mother's Story. Grenville's novels have been widely published in translation. She has also written or co-written several books about the process of writing, which are used in school and university writing courses. Grenville was awarded the 2017 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
© Tim Georgeson