Brenda Niall

Biography

Brenda Niall is a distinguished biographer, literary critic and journalist. She was appointed as a teaching fellow in the English Department at Monash University in 1964 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1975 and Reader in 1994. She has held visiting fellowships at Michigan and Yale Universities. She was American Council of Learned Societies Visiting Research Fellow in 1975 and Visiting Scholar, Humanities Research Centre at the ANU in 1983 and 1987. She retired from her position as Reader in English Literature at Monash University in 1995. Her research interests are in the fields of Australian Literature, Australian History, and American Literature (in particular Edith Wharton). In 2004 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia to acknowledge her services to Australian Literature. In October 2005 Monash University awarded her the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters. She was awarded the National Biography Prize in 2016 for her biography of Daniel Mannix.

Her publications include Martin Boyd: a Life, winner of the National Book Council non-fiction award 1990, Georgiana, winner of the Victorian and Queensland Premiers’ awards 1995, The  Boyds: a family biography, Victorian Premier’s award 2002, Judy Cassab: a Portrait 2005, The Riddle of Father Hackett 2009, True North the Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack 2012, Mannix, winner of the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal 2016, Can You Hear the Sea? My Grandmother’s Story 2017, Newman College: a History 1918- 2018. With Josephine Dunin and Frances O’Neill, 2018, Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian Writers 2020, My Accidental Career 2022, Joan Lindsay: the Hidden Life of the Woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock is at press ( Text Publishing) for publication in October 2024.

Learn more about Brenda:

More than a ‘nice little job’: Brenda Niall’s career in academia — published May 2024.