Elizabeth Harrower

Elizabeth Harrower: The woman in the watch tower is the first (and perhaps final) word on one of Australia’s most brilliant and bedevelling writers. Like Harrower’s, Wyndham’s prose is meticulously observed, emotionally attuned and full of grace, insight and vision. It’s a fantastic achievement.“” – Dominic Amerena ”“This is an extraordinary biography of one of the finest, and most important, Australian writers, Elizabeth Harrower. In a braiding so skilled you can’t see it, Susan Wyndham takes us from Harrower’s life into her work and her friendships, and then back into her work and life. This is a deceptively simple, beautifully detailed, psychologically acute portrait worthy of its subject.”” – Anna Funder”“This is a wonderful book. It gives us the complexities of Harrower’s life and of her fascinating character – so naïve and at the same time so intelligent, her prickly diffidence coupled with a kind of gormless passion. And it sets her compellingly into the decades when modern Australian literature was coming into being. An indispensable contribution to Australian writing.”” – Brigitta Olubas

Susan Wyndham is a writer and journalist who has been New York correspondent for The Australian newspaper and literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Her most recent book, co-edited with Brigitta Olubas, is Hazzard and Harrower: The letters. In 2024 she was awarded a National Library of Australia Fellowship to research the life of Elizabeth Harrower.