Doing Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Jolley

Although she started writing early in life, it was not until her 50s that Elizabeth Jolley received the recognition her talent deserved. She won The Age Book of the Year award on three occasions as well as the Miles Franklin Award. She has won the Western Australian Premier’s prize for both fiction and non-fiction, and is now regarded as one of Australia’s most acclaimed authors. The array of wild characters in her fiction – misfits and those on the edge of society – can also be found in her remarkable life, as revealed in Doing Life. Biographer Brian Dibble was given complete access to the writer’s private papers and has spent more than a decade travelling the world to write this lyrical and readable biography.