Thea Astley

Thea Astley AO (1925-2004) was a multi-award-winning novelist and short story writer. She won the Miles Franklin Literary Award four times, for The Well Dressed Explorer (1962) and The Acolyte (1972), both part of the Untapped Collection, as well as The Slow Natives (1965), and Drylands (1999). Other awards for her work include The Age Book of the Year, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and a Queensland Premier's Literary Award. She also received multiple personal awards including, in 1989, the Patrick White Award and, in 2002, a New South Wales Premier's Award for a lifetime's achievement in literature.