Deborah FitzGerald
Hardcover 2023
Her Sunburnt Country. The Extraordinary Literary Life of Dorothea Mackellar
The biography of Dorothea Mackellar illuminates the life of a poet who gave Australia arguably the best known and most loved poem ever written. My Country is sometimes referred to as I love a Sunburnt Country after its most famous line. It continues to resonate across time, celebrating Australia’s unique geography and something more emotive – a deep spiritual connection to the land.
FitzGerald has emerged with an objective and illuminating portrait of the privileged, contradictory and occasionally very unhappy life of Mackellar, as well as her legacy. — Paul Daley, The Guardian
This is an engaging tale of a national icon. — Steven Carroll, Sydney Morning Herald
Deborah FitzGerald graduated in 2022 with a Doctor of Arts from the University of Sydney after completing her thesis, In Search of Dorothea: A biography of Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar. During the course of the doctorate, she won the 2021 Dame Leonie Kramer Prize in Australian Poetry and the 2019 Thomas Henry Coulson Scholarship. FitzGerald is also a senior journalist, editor and writer who has worked across major media organisations including the ABC, Channel Nine and News Corp. Her first book, Sophie’s Boys, was published in 2018.
Deborah won The Society of Women Writers NSW’s Abbie Clancy award in 2021 when she was enrolled for her Doctor of Arts at the University of Sydney. Her abstract was entitled Dorothea Mackellar: Whose Country?