Shirley Hazzard, the celebrated Australian writer whose 1980 novel The Transit of Venus won the US National Book Critics Circle Award has died at the age of 85.
Sydney-born Hazzard passed away in New York on Monday evening local time after a decade-long battle with Alzheimers.
![Expatriate Australian novelist Shirley Hazzard, author of <i>The Great Fire</i>.](/web/20170425062741im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/6/h/b/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtan4p.png/1481676425134.jpg)
Her four novels and short story collections were internationally recognised and were longlisted for some of the world's most renowned literary awards.
Hazzard's third novel, The Transit of Venus, won the American National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1980.
![Author Shirley Hazzard in her early days.](/web/20170425062741im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/v/9/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtan4p.png/1481860977854.jpg)
Her following novel, The Great Fire, was published in 2003 after it took Hazzard more than 20 years to complete. It was recognised with the US National Book Award in 2003, the 2004 Miles Franklin Award and was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize.
The Economist also named The Great Fire their 2003 Book of the Year.
"Shirley Hazzard's new book is the most interesting novel published this year," the prestigious magazine wrote in its review.
Hazzard was also a celebrated writer of short fiction. Her 1977 short story "A Long Story Short" was published in The New Yorker and garnered an O. Henry Award.
A citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom, Hazzard had lived overseas since 1947. She was married to the late American writer Francis Steegmuller. Together wrote a collection of short essays on Naples.
The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples was published in 2008 and recounted Hazzard's time in Naples in the 1950s as a clerical employee of the United Nations.
Hazzard worked for the United Nations for 10 years but later become critical of the organisation, writing two non-fiction books: Defeat of an Ideal (1973) and Countenance of Truth (1990).
In her later years, Hazzard divided her time between Italy and the United States. Her novels reflected her intrepid nature, with The Transit of Venus set in Sydney, New York, London and Stockholm.